Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "Falling Through the Earth"

Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir is Danielle Trussoni's first book. It won the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award for 2005-06 and was chosen as one of the New York Times Top 10 books for 2006.

Here's what Danielle said about page 69 of her book:

At the heart of my book, Falling Through the Earth, is the relationship between my father and his children. Page 69 happens to be the culmination of one of the most intense scenes in the book, when my father tells me, my brother and my sister that my mother has had a miscarriage. The scene illustrates the brash, unsentimental, and often-times emotionally oblivious nature of my father:

Maureen (our babysitter) finished her call and said, “Your mom is in the hospital. Your dad will be home in an hour or so. He’ll explain everything.”

When Dad came home, we ran down the driveway, meeting his truck. He climbed out, grabbed his toolbox, and walked inside to the kitchen, where he took a can of beer from the fridge, popped the top, and flicked it in the trash. Kelly and Matt and I gathered around him, barraging him with questions. Where is Mom? Why is she in the hospital? Is she sick?

Dad said, “I have some good news and some bad news.”

Good news first! Good news first!

“Good news: Your mom had a baby.”

Dad paused while Kelly, Matt and I whooped and screamed. A baby? A boy or a girl? What’s its name? A baby!

Dad took a sip of his beer, waiting for us to quiet down.

“Bad news: It was born too soon and died.”

The three of us looked at our father, too stunned to speak. Dad leaned against the countertop and tapped a Paul Mall filterless from the maroon-and-white pack. He lit the cigarette and looked out the window. A slow, sickening sensation of loss grew in my body.

Many thanks to Danielle for the input.

Click here and here to read excerpts from the book.

Among the praise for Falling Through the Earth:

“A finely tuned account of the relationship between Trussoni and her father, a man who betrays the people he loves, visiting on them torments he can't, despite his best effort, contain… The affection, respect and humor she brings to the task of revealing this complicated individual is testimony both to her creative abilities and to the generosity of her spirit.”
-- New York Times Book Review

“Trussoni has taken an extended trip to hell and come back with treasures from that drunken, burning, broken place. She writes of the effects of war, the ‘pity of war, and the pity that war distills’ without a hint of self-pity, with surprising humor, disarming candor, a hard-won wisdom and with uncannily sure-footed prose. Even if this book were not urgently important and devastatingly timely, I’d still urge you to read it for the sheer triumph of the author’s gift.”
-- Alexandra Fuller, author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight

“Trussoni’s memoir is a richly textured history of her father’s war and the long term effects his service had on her and her family. With Falling Through the Earth she delivers a salient and timely reminder that a war’s victims aren’t limited to those in uniform nor demarcated by geography. This is an important and harrowing story.”
-- Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead

“A heartbreaking story of missed connections, made all the more painful by the author’s refusal to indulge in self-pity. . . . This excellent memoir is much more than the sum of its parts. Free from melodrama, Trussoni’s remembrance describes with painful acuity how war can come home in the most subtle ways.”
-- People