New Books Network

Saronik chats with Jay Shelat about the 9/11 family novel. They discuss how the attacks (re)dynamized constructions and perceptions of family.

Jay refers to a few 9/11 family novels, including Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, Netherland by Joseph O’Neill, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. If you want a list of more 9/11 family novels, feel free to ask. A special shoutout to Sarah Wasserman’s The Death of Things: Ephemera and the American Novel for ideas about the state of print culture.

Jay is a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where he is writing his dissertation about 9/11 and the family. His work can be found or is forthcoming in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Critic, ASAP/J, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @jshelat1.

Image: photo taken by Ben Hider at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

Music used in promotional material: Adagio (mother nature’s sleep) by Dee Yan-Kay

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