Heroic Measures A Novel
Heroic Measures A Novel by Jill Ciment is a first edition published by Pantheon Books in 2009, featuring 191 pages in English. This novel unfolds in a post-9/11 New York City, where a gasoline tanker truck stuck in the Midtown Tunnel triggers widespread panic among residents. The story centers on Alex, an artist, and Ruth, a former schoolteacher, as they navigate the chaos to get their beloved dachshund, Dorothy, to the animal hospital after she becomes paralyzed. Amidst the turmoil, the couple also faces the impending sale of their apartment, intertwining their personal crisis with the city’s collective anxiety.
Readers will find a narrative that explores themes of real estate and emotional attachment through the lens of a city on high alert. Over the course of forty-eight hours, the couple’s journey reflects the fluctuating real estate market, mirroring their hopes and fears as they await news about their dog. The novel shifts perspectives among Alex, Ruth, and Dorothy, capturing the cacophony of voices and opinions that characterize urban life during a time of uncertainty. Heroic Measures presents a unique blend of personal and societal challenges, offering insight into the complexities of love and anxiety in a bustling metropolis.
Official synopsis Publisher
From the author ofThe Tattoo Artist(“Beautifully written”—Alice Sebold; “Boldly conceived”—The New York Times Book Review), a new novel—taut, moving, accomplished—set in a fraught, post-9/11 New York… about real estate, dog love, and a city on alert.
A gasoline tanker truck is “stuck” in the Midtown Tunnel. New Yorkers are panicked . . . . Is this the next big attack?
Alex, an artist, and Ruth, a former schoolteacher with an FBI file as thick as a dictionary, must get their beloved dachshund, whose back legs have suddenly become paralyzed, to the animal hospital sixty blocks north. But the streets of Manhattan are welded with traffic. Their dog, Dorothy, twelve-years-old and gray-faced, is the emotional center of Alex and Ruth’s forty-five-year-long childless marriage. Using a cutting board as a stretcher, they ferry the dog uptown.
This is also the weekend that Alex and Ruth must sell their apartment. While house hunters traipse
through it during their open house, husband and wife wait by the phone to hear from the animal hospital. During the course of forty-eight hours, as the missing truck driver terrorizes the city, the price of their apartment becomes a barometer for collective hope and despair, as the real estate market spikes and troughs with every breaking news story.
In shifting points of view—Alex’s, Ruth’s, and the little dog’s—man, woman, and one small tenacious
beast try to make sense of the cacophony of rumors, opinions, and innuendos coming from news
anchors, cable TV pundits, pollsters, bomb experts, hostages, witnesses, real estate agents, house hunters, bargain seekers, howling dogs, veterinarians, nurses, and cab drivers.
A moving, deftly told novel of ultrahigh-urban anxiety.
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