The Light We Lost

On the morning of September 11, 2001, four commercial airline flights were hijacked by members of al-Qaeda, a terrorist group based in the Middle East. The first plane purposely crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. A second plane hit the South Tower moments later. Just over half an hour later, a third plane crashed into the west side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania after a group of passengers overwhelmed the hijackers. It is suspected the fourth plane had originally targeted a building in Washington, D.C., possibly the Capitol or the White House. The attacks resulted in 2,977 deaths, countless injuries, and lingering health complications among survivors, first responders, volunteers, and local residents. September 11, 2001 is the deadliest terrorist attack in modern history.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush’s administration recognized Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, as the architect of that day’s events. A so-called “War on Terror” was announced with the goal of bringing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the development of other terrorist organizations. In October of 2001, the War in Afghanistan began after the Taliban, or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. The conflict would continue until the 2021 Taliban offensive, making the War in Afghanistan the longest war in United States military history; it lasted six months longer than the Vietnam War. During the War on Terror, the objective of bringing Osama bin Laden to justice was achieved by his death on May 2, 2011 after a U.S. special forces operation. Al-Qaeda is still in existence, but by the end of 2004, two-thirds of the senior figures believed to be involved in the planning of September 11, 2001 had been captured or killed.

The term “War on Terror” remains controversial. Mark N. Katz, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Policy Council, writes, “How, many asked, can war be waged against a tactic? Others claimed (rightly or wrongly) that many U.S. allies — or even the United States itself — also engaged in terror, or state terrorism. ‘Terrorists,’ then, was what the U.S. government called those whom it dislikes.” (Katz, Mark N. “What Exactly Is the ‘War on Terror?’” Middle East Policy Council. Sept. 30, 2010.) Katz goes on to discuss criticism that “the War on Terror is really a war against America’s Muslim opponents, or even against Islam itself.” (Id.) Indeed, some of the US government’s most controversial domestic and geopolitical moves of the 21st century were done in the name of a “War on Terror,” including the Iraq War, the widespread digital surveillance of US citizens (particularly Muslim Americans), and the torture and extraordinary rendition associated with CIA black sites.

On April 27, 2006, building began on a new structure on the site of the World Trade Center complex. The building, formally known as Freedom Tower, opened on November 3, 2014, and the One World Observatory opened on May 9, 2015. There are future construction plans for five high rise office buildings and a National September 11 Memorial and Museum where the original Twin Towers stood.

Santopolo uses the events involving September 11 and the War on Terror as a backdrop and timeline to her plot. She also uses these events, such as the Iraq War (2004-2011), to illustrate the danger of Gabe’s job and to foreshadow Gabe’s ultimate fate. It is important to note that the author takes an American-centric view—and particularly a non-Muslim-centric view—in depicting the mood and atmosphere following 9/11. Although Americans experienced a stronger sense of national community following the attacks in some ways, that unity also led to serious consequences. These included increased Islamophobia (Gunter, Booth & Kieffer, Caleb. “Islamophobia After 9/11: How a fearmongering fringe movement exploited the terror attacks to gain political power.” Southern Poverty Law Center. Sept. 17, 2021.) and Congress approving the Iraq War without sufficiently evaluating the accuracy of the more than 900 false statements about Iraq made by the Bush administration in the two years after 9/11. (Lewis, Charles & Smith, Mark Reading. The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War. Washington, DC: Center for Public Integrity. 2008.)

Santopolo takes a similar approach to the 2014 Gaza War. After the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, Israel launched an operation in the Gaza Strip on July 8, 2014 that began a seven weeklong conflict between Israel and Palestine. Israel’s main objective of the conflict was to stop rocket fire from coming into Israel from Gaza. Hamas’s main objective was to put international pressure on Israel to stop the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip. The conflict was fought mostly with air raids that was devastating to the people of the Gaza Strip, resulting in nearly 2,400 civilian deaths and more than 10,600 injuries. Once again, Santopolo uses the events of the 2014 Gaza War both as a plot device and to place Gabe in danger as part of his job.

In the author’s hands, the shifts in the American psyche post-9/11 provide the novel’s emotional context. However, given the complexities and consequences of these shifts, it is crucial to resist the urge to romanticize the era as one marked by “national unity” at home and “danger and adventure” abroad.