Middletown, America

出版者:Random House

作者:Gail Sheehy

页数:448

出版时间:2003-09-02

价格:USD 25.95

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780375508622

具体描述

The single event that we know as 9/11 is over, but the shock waves continue to radiate outward, generated by orange alerts, terrorism lockdowns, and the shrinking of personal liberties we once took for granted. The stories in this book, of real people faced with extraordinary trauma and gradually transcending it, are the best antidote to our fears. Middletown, America is a book of hope.

All Americans were hit with some degree of trauma on September 11, 2001, but no place was hit harder than Middletown, New Jersey. Gail Sheehy spent the better part of two years walking the journey from grief toward renewal with fifty members of the community that lost more people in the World Trade Center than any other outside New York City. Her subjects are the women, men, and children who remained after the devastation and who are putting their lives back to-gether.

Sheehy tells the story of four widowed moms from New Jersey who started out scarcely knowing the difference between the House and the Senate, yet turned their sorrow and anger into action and became formidable witnesses to the failures of the country’s leadership to connect the dots before September 11. Sheehy follows the four moms as they fight White House attempts to thwart the independent commission investigating 9/11 and expose efforts at a cover-up.

What would become of the young wives carrying children their husbands would never see, wives who had watched their dreams literally go up in smoke in that amphitheater of death across the river? Amazingly, each finds her own door to the light. Here, too, is the story of the widow and widower who met in the waiting room of a mental-health agency and brought each other back from the brink of despair across a bridge of love. Sheehy also reveals how bereft mothers who will never have another son or daughter found reasons to recommit to life. And she follows in the footsteps of the robbed children, documenting the incredible resilience of four-year-olds, the anger of teenagers, the courage of sisters and brothers.

Sheehy follows survivors who escaped the burning towers only to find themselves trapped inside a tower of inner torment, from which it took love, family, and faith to free themselves. She is taken into the confi-dence of the night crew at Ground Zero, police officers who worked in that pit for eight months straight and then faced the “returning home” phenomenon. She recounts the confessions of religious leaders who struggled to explain the inexplicable to their flocks. Mental-health professionals confide in her, as do corporate chiefs, educators, friends and neigh-bors, town officials, and volunteers who rose to the occasion and committed themselves to healing their wounded community.

As a journalist who conducted more than nine hundred interviews, Gail Sheehy is an impeccable researcher. As a writer with a novelistic gift, she weaves the individual stories into a compelling narrative. Middletown, America illuminates every stage of a tumultuous passage—from shock, passivity, and panic attacks, to rising anger and deep grieving, and on to the secret romances and startling relapses, the realignment of faith, the return of a capacity to love and be loved, and, finally, the commitment to constructing new lives.

用户评价

这部作品的叙事张力着实令人着迷，作者对于小镇生活的细致入微的描摹，简直就像是把我们带到了那个名叫“米德尔敦”的地方，亲眼目睹着每一个居民的喜怒哀乐。那种老旧的街道、午后阳光下尘埃飞舞的感觉，扑面而来。我特别欣赏作者在刻画人物时的那种克制与深刻。没有冗长的心理解剖，仅仅是通过他们日复一日的琐碎行动和偶尔迸发的对话火花，人物的内心世界就徐徐展开了。那对总是在后院争吵不休的邻居，他们那份根植于生活深处的怨怼，比任何激烈的争吵场面都更具穿透力。再说说镇上的那个老旧五金店，它不仅仅是一个买卖工具的地方，它简直是这个社区的时间胶囊，承载了至少三代人的记忆。店主那双常年沾着机油的手，无声地诉说着对传统工艺的坚守与无奈。这种对“地方感”的成功捕捉，是当代小说中罕见的宝贵品质。读完后，你不会觉得你只是看了一个故事，而是你真实地在那里生活了一段时间，带着那些小镇人物的遗憾和希望，一起向前走了一段路。那种回味悠长，让人不禁想立刻再去翻开重读，去捕捉那些先前忽略掉的微妙线索。

老实说，初读这本书时，我一度有些困惑于其叙事节奏的缓慢。它不像那些追求快速情节推进的流行小说那样，一上来就抛出爆炸性的冲突。相反，它像一条缓缓流淌的河流，需要耐心去适应它的水流速度。但一旦你适应了这种悠然的步调，就会发现每一个看似平淡的场景背后，都潜藏着巨大的情感暗流。作者的笔触极其细腻，对于社会阶层的微妙划分，那种无形的壁垒，描绘得入木三分。例如，镇上新来的那批“城市移民”与土生土长的本地人之间，那种眼神的闪躲、社交场合的尴尬，远比直接的冲突描写要来得更有力量。这种对美国小镇社会结构根源的挖掘，让人不得不深思，在看似铁板一块的社区表面下，到底隐藏着多少未被言说的紧张关系。这本书的优点在于，它没有试图提供一个光鲜亮丽的美国梦版本，而是呈现了一种更真实、更复杂、甚至略带霉味的现实图景。它成功地迫使读者去思考，究竟是什么维系着一个共同体，又是什么力量在缓慢地将其撕裂。

这部小说的结构安排堪称精妙，它采用了多线叙事，但高明之处在于，这些看似分散的个体命运，最终都巧妙地汇聚到了一个共同的背景之下，形成了一种宿命般的交织感。我尤其欣赏作者对“遗忘”这个主题的处理。小镇上弥漫着一种集体的失忆症，关于过去发生的一些关键事件，每个人都小心翼翼地避而不谈，仿佛只要不提，那些痛苦就不会复苏。然而，作者通过穿插的那些简短的闪回片段，像幽灵一样，一次次地提醒读者，历史从未真正过去，它只是潜伏在日常的缝隙之中。这种处理方式，让故事的层次感陡然增加，使得读者不得不化身为侦探，去拼凑那些被刻意掩盖的真相。这种对记忆和历史责任的探讨，使得这部作品超越了一般的家庭或社区小说，具有了更深层的哲学意味。它的后劲很足，让你在放下书本很久之后，还会反复咀嚼那些未说出口的话语和未被填补的空白。

从文学技巧的角度来看，作者对于环境的运用达到了教科书级别的水准。这个“米德尔敦”不仅仅是故事发生的地点，它本身就是一个活生生的角色，影响着每一个被困于其中的人物的抉择。镇外的河流，每年春天的泛滥，不仅仅是自然现象，它象征着旧秩序的周期性动摇和对既有安稳生活的潜在威胁。而在镇中心那座宏伟却逐渐破败的市政厅，则象征着权力中心的衰落和集体意志的迷失。书中对季节更迭的描写，也与人物的心境变化形成了精准的对映。夏日的焦躁、秋日的萧瑟、冬日的凝滞，都与角色们在不同阶段所经历的情感低谷或高潮完美契合。这种高度统一的氛围营造，极大地增强了故事的沉浸感和感染力。阅读过程中，我仿佛能闻到空气中潮湿泥土和即将下雨的金属气味，这种多感官的体验，是真正优秀文学作品的标志。

最让我感到惊喜的是，尽管题材聚焦于一个看似封闭、保守的小镇，但作者对现代性的冲击与抵抗的描绘，却显得异常尖锐和精准。小镇上的年轻人如何渴望逃离，他们通过互联网和媒体接触到的外部世界，与他们被期望承担的责任之间产生的巨大拉扯，刻画得入木三分。书中有一段情节，关于一家大型连锁超市试图取代本地杂货店的冲突，不仅仅是商业竞争，更是一场关于身份认同和文化存续的无声战争。作者没有简单地将新技术或外来事物描绘成纯粹的反派，而是展现了其带来的便利性与随之而来的文化阉割之间的复杂权衡。这种拒绝简单二元对立的态度，使得整部作品的思想深度大大提升。它迫使我们思考，在一个全球化加速的时代，我们如何定义“家园”，以及我们愿意为维护这种“地方感”付出怎样的代价。这是一部深沉、睿智，且极具时代洞察力的杰作。