A Celebration of Community. Braving the Waves-Rockaway Rises ...and Rises Again, Kevin Boyle

Residents of Rockaway Beach, New York had already suffered tremendous losses on September 11th. Then, just two months later, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed inexplicably into their Belle Harbor neighborhood. Another act of terrorism?

From the back cover:

Few places--other than Ground Zero itself-can more acutely mark before and after September 11 and November 12, 2001 than the Harbor Light, a neighborhood pub in Rockaway, located in the shadows of Manhattans skyscrapers.

-Before, you might meet regular customer, George Johnson, there. After, hes one of the flag-raising firefighters in the now-famous photo reminiscent of the marines at Iwo Jima.

-Before, you might bump into Mike Moran. After, hes the firefighter immortalized on a best-selling CD, who told a packed Madison Square Garden that Osama Bin Laden could kiss his royal Irish ass."

-Before, young stockbrokers would get a good-natured ribbing from their firefighting buddies for choosing the safe" career path. After, youd find they werent so safe after all.

-Before-in fact, just the night before-you might have seen Tommy Carroll and Danny Suhr yelling at the Giants as they were losing the season opener to the Denver Broncos. After, Tommy is the guy who got lucky. A fire company was short a man so he filled in. Had he stayed with his regular crew, hed be dead-just like the rest of them. Truth is, hes not so lucky. He can still hear the sound of humans hitting the ground from 100 stories above him. And Danny? Hes dead ... killed by one of the jumpers.

-Before, youd meet Pete Hayden, Deputy Chief FDNY, having a beer with his brother Jack, who moonlights behind the bar when hes not fighting fires himself. After, you wouldnt see Pete much. He stayed at Ground Zero, working every day for two months straight. When he finally decided to give himself a day off, he picked November 12-the day American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into his Rockaway neighborhood ... right next to the Harbor Light.

Kevin Boyle seeks the meaning of the events on and after September 11 not in abstractions but in the moving, personal accounts of those who suffered grievous losses and those who we celebrate as heroes. In a clean direct and therefore powerful prose that captures the true voices of his friends and neighbors, Boyle manages to say more about community than a hundred sociology textbooks and more about the human capacity for grace under pressure than many of our best novelists. This is not a book about politics or foreign policy, but a study of how people rose to excruciating challenges. People in every town in America will identify with Kevin Boyles people in Rockaway."
-E.J. Dionne, Jr., syndicated columnist, author of Why Americans Hate Politics

What kind of neighborhood produces heroes? Rockaway does. Kevin Boyle takes us inside the lives, the homes, and the culture of a wonderful slice of America. These are the people the media ignores-until we need them. A captivating book."
-David Brooks, The Weekly Standard; author of bestseller Bobos In Paradise

May the strength and faith of these heroes of Rockaway help us all rise up!"
-Tim Russert, NBCs Meet the Press

About the author:
From a sea wall in Rockaway, Kevin Boyle watched as the twin Towers burned and then crumbled. He was close enough to the crash of Flight 587 that his eyes dried from the heat of the hellish fire.
Boyle has spent his life in Brooklyn and Rockaway. He was editor of Rockaways only newspaper, The Wave, for five years and continues his relationship with the paper as a regular columnist. Boyle has been published in The Washington Post, New York Newsday, and the New York Post. He has a masters degree in radio and television from Brooklyn College. Before becoming editor of The Wave, he operated a sports bar in Brooklyn called The Brooklyn Dodger.