Continuing its program of 9/11-related events, St. Paul’s Chapel will hold another book-signing on November 6th, when Gail Sheehy, author of Middletown, America: One Town’s Passage from Trauma to Hope, visits the chapel. Sheehy will sign books from 10 am to 4 pm and give a talk from 1 pm-2 pm.

Middletown, America chronicles the lives of people in Middletown, New Jersey, a town devastated by the deaths of nearly 50 residents in the 9/11 attacks.

“It occurred to me that we could learn a good deal about American life at the opening of a new millennium through the microcosm of Middletown, New Jersey,” writes Sheehy in the book’s preface. She began “walking the journey of trauma and grieving with some of the victims’ families and survivors, week by week.”

The subjects of Sheehy’s research were the relatives and friends of single mothers, police officers, stock traders and brokers who worked in the World Trade Center, and others. Sheehy believes their stories compose a “powerful parable of our times” suggesting that hope is the element essential to emerging from adversity.

Sheehy’s other works include Passages, Hillary’s Choice, and Understanding Men’s Passages.

Posted on Trinity News October 22, 2003