NOVELS ABOUT 9/11 CAN'T STACK UP TO NON-FICTION

Interesting story from USA TODAY on the 6th anniversary.

Six years after the twin towers fell, enough non-fiction has been published about Sept. 11, 2001, to fill an entire section of a bookstore: 1,036 titles, according to Books in Print.

But novels inspired by 9/11 could fit on one shelf. There are only about 30, and none has seized the public imagination.

Carol Fitzgerald of Book-reporter.com, a website for book discussions, says fiction can't compete with the "visual images that dominate our memories. We don't need to create stories around the event. There were enough stories there from the start."
Two novels by popular writers who deal only tangentially with the terrorism events have sold well:
Nicholas Sparks' 2006 romance Dear John is narrated by an Army soldier who re-enlists after 9/11. It hit No. 3.
Nelson DeMille's 2006 thriller Wild Fire imagines a post-9/11 right-wing conspiracy to provoke a U.S. nuclear attack on Muslim terrorists. made it to No. 4.
Novelist Jay McInerney says the events are a worthy subject for fiction.
"Eventually, it will be a novel or more than one novel" that "will shape our understanding," much like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby continues to shape popular images of the 1920s.
McInerney's The Good Life, released last year, focuses on a couple who work at a soup kitchen near Ground Zero and are engaged in an adulterous affair.
It opens on Sept. 10, 2001, then skips to Sept. 12 because "I felt the book would be more powerful leaving that space empty for everyone to fill in. … Everyone saw the towers fall, if only on TV."

In contrast, Don DeLillo's Falling Man, released in May, includes vivid descriptions that critics both praised and blasted.
Falling Man has sold 39,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks 70% of sales. (The title refers to a fictitious performance artist, not anyone who fell or jumped from the twin towers.)

Editor Nan Graham says sales are "fantastic for serious literary fiction," and she expects more, especially if it's taught in college courses. She's not surprised readers were attracted by non-fiction to try to answer questions:

"What happened? Could it have been avoided?"

Fiction "comes later as people ask, 'How has it changed the way we think and act and remember?' "

Link to USA Today.