A History of American Literature

The American Century: Literature since 1945 809

the stories of their lives provide another perspective on the narratives of nation and

crisis. We see those narratives beyond a boundary, just as we do in Netherland, The

Reluctant Fundamentalist, and “Twilight of the Superheroes:” that is, from a position

beyond the verbal maneuvers of conventional political discourse.

Writing the crisis in drama

Of all the dramas written and performed in response to 9/11 and its aftermath,

The Guys (2001) by Anne Nelson (1969–) has so far proved the most popular.

Written in just nine days and first performed almost immediately after it was written,

it was conceived as a staged reading. There are two characters: Nick, a New York City

Fire Department captain who just happened to be off duty when his crew was called

to the World Trade Center on September 11, and Jean, a reporter born in Oklahoma

but now living in New York City, who feels powerless in the face of the 9/11 crisis.

The premise of this play, which has an artless, impromptu quality to it, is simple.

Nick has been asked to speak at memorial services being organized for those of his

men who died as a result of the terrorist attack. He is, however, at a loss for words –

or, at least, words sufficient for the purpose. Somehow, in the strange serendipity of

the days following 9/11, he is thrown together with Jean, who listens to his guileless

accounts of his fallen colleagues and then fashions them into eulogies. Through

talking about the dead and making them come alive again in memory and eulogy,

the two characters achieve a kind of catharsis. So, clearly the intention is, do the

audience. Many of the familiar tropes of post-9/11 writing are rehearsed. We are

told, for instance, that September 11 marked a turning point in history, or, as Jean

puts it, “the end of the Postmodern era.” And Jean dreams of rewinding history.

“Let’s just play the tape backwards,” she suggests, so that “the planes fly backwards ...

and land backwards in Boston. Everyone gets out of the plane and drives backwards

home.” But no attempt is made to understand the crisis. “I lie awake at nights

thinking, ‘What was the reason?’ ” Nick confides, seeking an explanation for the

terrorist attacks. And Jean speaks for the play when she replies simply, “No reason.”

Later on, Jean resists the idea that 9/11 has a global significance. “Everybody, all over

the world, was talking about it,” she recalls, “... And they all ... thought it was about

them! But it’s not! It’s about us!” Admittedly, this declaration is followed by a

tentative query, a request for confirmation (“Isn’t it?”). But that hardly qualifies the

intense focus of the play on actual consequences rather than possible causes,

the suffering of victims. The strength of the play resides in its simplicity, in its

belief in the “wonders” that “lie hidden in the people around us,” including those

who died at the World Trade Center, and in its conviction that talking, telling about

those wonders is both necessary and therapeutic since, as Jean puts it, “People need

to tell their stories.” That simplicity, however, is also its weakness. “The firefighter

needs a writer,” the audience is told at the beginning of the action; and Nick and Jean

never really develop beyond those stereotypical roles. The four men who form the

basis of their conversation and the subjects of the eulogies are never developed

beyond the stereotypical either: one is a veteran, one an apprentice who died on his

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