On 9/11, Torres was in her third trimester of pregnancy, and her husband had just started working in the Twin Towers the day before. This comic-book memoir tells of her relationship with her husband, Eddie, his death on 9/11 and its aftermath. It touches occasionally on the nation and world at large, but focuses mostly on Torres story, which bring the event into painful, individual detail. Most moving to me was the shift from the outpouring of goodwill and rage, to the backlash and pulling away of both friends and institutions. The black, white and blue illustrations by Sungyoon Choi are simple yet evocative. They’re a good complement for Torres’ text, which I appreciated for its honesty, ambivalence, and ultimately, its hope. ( )

I really wanted to love this - I really, really did. And some parts are great and poignant, especially those that deal with her personal relations ship with her son and husband. Unfortunately, the story that I assumed would be dealing with her grief and coming to terms with the awful events of 9/11, mainly becomes a story about the intricacies of how to apply for financial aid and how mixed messages and bureaucracy made the applications very difficult. There are some parts that are heart-wrenching, but there are others that makes the book seem mainly like Ms. Torres' getting back at the "machine" that made her run from agency to agency in order to get her reimbursements. Had the story been a more personal one, this may have become a prime contender for the 9/11 legacy, but unfortunately it falls a bit short.

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Great graphics- sad story. Don't read on public transport. ( )

This is the author's memoir of the tragedy of her life, becoming a widow on 9/11. Her husband was on his second day at his new job above the 85th floor and she was pregnant with their first child. The book jumps from moment to moment as she learns of his death, hopes that he is alive and missing, finding out he was a jumper, joins victim groups, goes through the bureaucracy of the charity help organizations and remembers past moment with her husband.

The book lacks a cohesive narrative jumping from one event to another and sometimes just showing the author's grief and emotions rather than telling a story. Of course, this is a depressing and sad story and it is hard to 'review' the story of someone's grief. The author's emotion and pain is clearly at the centre of this book rather than a story with a plot or characterization. For those interested in the after effects of 9/11 on the families left behind by those who were killed this sad, tragic tale of a woman who survives her grief and starts a new life for her baby, this book will certainly appeal. ( )

In 2001, Alissa Torres was pregnant with her first child. On September 10, her husband Eddie started work at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. On September 11, Alissa became a pregnant widow when Eddie, trapped on the 85th floor, leaped to his death before the tower fell.

In this poignant and affecting graphic novel memoir, Alissa chronicles her first year as one of the 9/11 widows, including the birth of their child two months after his death. She discusses her desperate search to find Eddie after the attacks; the crushing grief of realizing that he was dead after all; the often horrifying and confusing encounters with inept aid workers, well-meaning friends, and angry strangers; and her on-going fight to actually receive her share of the Victim Compensation fund, a lengthy and harrowing process that forced her to relive her grief over and over again while gaining no ground.

Sungyoon Choi’s illustrations are simple and straightforward, using only black, white, and blue to convey Alissa’s journey while taking nothing away from the rawness of Alissa’s emotions and sense of loss. The books opens and closes with a featureless blue field, bringing Alissa’s story full-circle from the cloudless blue sky of the morning she lost everything to the vivid blue ocean in which she floats one year later, remembering.


“American Widow” is touching and affecting, almost unbearably painful at times. It succeeds in bringing a national tragedy back down to the level of the personal and allowing those who didn’t lose anyone to understand the pain of those who did. ( )