From the Inside Out: Harrowing Escapes from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
By: Erik O. Ronningen / Narrated By: Andrew Firda, Katie McCall
Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
This iconic photo says it all
Author Erik O. Ronningen credits this as being a personal photo taken by Jim Usher, and I think it pretty much sums up what Ronningen’s book, From the Inside Out, is. It CERtainly captures an image indelibly emblazoned in my mind (I’m NOT the only one, I’m positive!).
Ronningen took several years to write the book, wanted to get it out by the first anniversary but then simply settled for getting it right. Considering he became a widower during the writing of it, losing his best cheerleader, I’m surprised it came out at all.
But I’m glad. While other books give an FDNY point of view (Report from Ground Zero) or an FAA/NORAD point of view (The Voices of 9-11), and though 102 Minutes does it all, From the Inside Out gives the listener a more personal feel for what the people in the Towers felt and for what they went through.
There are many instances which will have you shuddering: The “near-miss” variety of just choosing to do this, that, the other, that saved a person on that fateful day. And there are many different types of people covered also. The emergency crews are covered; workers are covered; even Ronningen’s wife’s experiences are covered (Watching tv completely and unutterably helpless the whole time, no word from her husband coming, fearing he was dead).
While it doesn’t get toooo terribly graphic, there are some scenes that’ll stay with you. In all the 9/11 books I’ve listened to thus far, watching people jumping from the upper floors and looking at the ground and seeing gore and body parts are always mentioned. They’re mentioned here also. Police try guiding people out of the building with a, “Keep going. Don’t look around; just keep going,” and NATURALLY people look around.
And then wish they hadn’t.
While Andrew Firda’s narration is okay, I must say that I became a trifle impatient with Katie McCall’s. I know, I know: If the situations on September 11th weren’t fraught then I dunno what are, but still. I think McCall went overboard on fraught and shrill with her narration. As she did all the women for the most part, she simply made it sound like every single woman was a spaz. There were notes of, not rising hysteria, but flat-out in-your-face hysteria.
But aside from that, I did appreciate the stories, and I did get over the narration (Cuz I reeeeally wanted to hear what people went through). Mostly, I appreciated the Epilogue where the stories, the people covered had their Happily Ever Afters… except for Ronningen, who loses his wife to cancer.
Maybe I’m just a bit numb after listening to so very many Sept. 11th books, but his wife dying really bummed me out.
But seriously; considering the intensity of some of the other books? It was nice to get serious, sometimes frantic stories, all with some hope in them.
…phew…!
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