Book Review: Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature by Aimee Pozorski
Surely one of the most memorable and enduring artistic responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks is Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman’s New Yorker cover, “9/11/2001.” The image initially appears as an utterly dark void, but a closer look reveals the ghostly afterimage of the Twin Towers, rendered in an even deeper shade of black. Published in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Mouly and Spiegelman’s artwork evokes the monochrome despair of a grieving nation, and seemed to usher in a dark night of the American soul.