Alissa Torres

This great graphic autobiography transcends anything you'd expect to do with 9/11. That tragedy has been picked apart and mythologized so much, it is easy to forget that the struggles that those directly affected faced were much less extreme than what most media coverage has focused on (Terrorism! Anti-Americanism! Jihad!) Whew! Run-on!

In showing how the widows of 9/11 faced mundane, tedious struggles (battling with Red Cross and the US Government for compensation, avoiding media show more exploitation, single motherhood), they are allowed to be human instead of martyrs for us to project meaning onto. American Widow is the most poignant and least cynical first-person account of 9/11 I've seen anywhere. For that matter, it is one of the best memoirs on widowhood I've read. show less

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 show more 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. show less

I liked how the author showed the wrinkles in what I had assumed was a clean story of American overabundance in grief and sympathy. I appreciated how Torres showed that difficult interactions with the Red Cross, volunteers, and even friends--who were jealous of her "tragedy payments"--contributed to her grief, and made her feel more alone. Particularly in a disaster that affected so many Americans, directly and indirectly.

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 show more 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. show less