Joe Calderone’s novel “Don’t Look Back” begins at 9:05 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001.
A probie double-checks his gear before leaving the firehouse. “It might have seemed silly, but the precaution was something they taught in the FDNY Fire Academy, where only weeks ago he had been training.”
The focus quickly shifts from the firefighter to his commander, Lieutenant Callahan, and then to the entire department.
The attack happened at a shift change, “[and] so many firefighters who were just coming off their tours joined those reporting for the next shift, jumping on rigs together across the city – all heading to the WTC. Some firefighters whose rigs had already left the firehouse commandeered MTA buses, ordering the bus drivers to take them downtown to the Trade Center so they could be part of the action. This was the biggest, baddest fire in a generation and no one on the FDNY wanted to miss it.”
When reporter Juan Gomez the next day gets from a trusted source an off-the-record approximate figure on FDNY fatalities, his shocked response is: “Three hundred? How is that possible?”
The first-time novelist Calderone himself spent 25 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, including covering City Hall for New York Newsday and serving as Investigations Editor for the Daily News at the time of the 9/11 attack. He now teaches journalism at NYU.
“‘Don’t Look Back’ is a thriller that takes readers into the hearts and minds of a FDNY family who lost their son during 9/11, and set out on a mission to find out what really happened to him and the other 342 firefighters who perished needlessly,” the novelist told the Echo. “Sarah Murphy, a savvy community organizer from the Bronx, teams up with a local investigative reporter and other 9/11 families as they take on City Hall to unearth the failures at the FDNY. They risk everything to expose a corruption scandal that put faulty radios in the hands of the FDNY, leading to the worst loss of life in the history of the department.”
Calderone also described the book as “historical fiction, based on true events, [that] takes a different perspective on a worldwide event and gives voice to the 343 members of the FDNY who perished, largely unaware that the buildings were about to come down upon them.”
“Don’t Look Back,” which recalls vividly Sept. 11, 2001, and puts the reader into the mind of one firefighter facing death inside the North Tower, has been widely praised. It was selected as a “best new in paperback” by People magazine, which called the book “a suspenseful, eye-opening thriller about the firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11.” Dan’s Papers called it a “compelling story,” adding “you will be riveted by the power of the families fight to bring the firefighters deaths the respect they deserve.”
For City & State, Bill Cunningham, who served in City Hall just after 9/11 as Mayor Bloomberg’s communications director, said the novelist “creates a readable tale populated with composite characters [that] serve a larger truth.”
Cunningham added, “Calderone takes the reader inside the twin towers and city government as it grapples with the fallout.
“Calderone’s book performs a service to the city and its emergency responders, particularly the FDNY.”
Tom Robbins, Investigative Journalist In Residence at the Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, wrote the following advance praise, "This is a novel about the most painful day in New York City history and its aftermath, as reporters and investigators struggled to uncover the official blunders of Rudy Giuliani's City Hall that made a tragic day worse. Joe Calderone uses all his tools as one of New York’s best investigative reporters, as well as a panoramic knowledge of the city, to offer a vivid tale of people in search of a difficult truth."
Nick Pileggi, author of “Wiseguy" and its screenplay “Goodfellas,” said, “Joe Calderone, one of the city’s great reporters, uses those skills in a brilliantly suspenseful novel about 9/11, the city’s worst tragedy, and the first responders who lost their lives that day and their families' search for the truth.”
Michael Regan, former First Deputy Commissioner, FDNY, said the novelist “knows his stuff when it comes to the FDNY and he has crafted a novel that helps shine a light on the incredible challenges and sacrifices firefighters made on 9/11, including the 343 members of the FDNY we lost that day under the most tragic of circumstances.”
“Black Hawk Down” author Mark Bowden wrote, “A crisply written page-turner, ‘Don't Look Back’ is a story of tragedy, tenacity, and the continued importance of a free press. From the terror of the final moments inside the World Trade Center towers, to the incompetence that doomed hundreds of city firefighters, to the principled mutiny inside a major newspaper to get that story out, the story never lets up. Calderone writes with moving affection and respect for the blue-collar men and women who do the hard work in our democracy, who fight to preserve it, and who sometimes pay for that struggle with their lives.”
Joe Calderone
Year of birth: 1956
Place of birth: Queens
Spouse: Madeline
Children: 3
Residence: Floral Park, N.Y.
Published works: “Don’t Look Back” (Post Hill Press)
What is your writing routine? Are there ideal conditions?
I usually write in the early morning before my day job begins or on the weekends when the house is quiet.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Don’t give up. I received more than 20 rejections from agents until Ed Breslin read it and agreed to represent me. Keep writing. And find a good editor to work with.
What book are you currently reading?
“Strong of Heart: Life and Death in the Fire Department of New York,” by Thomas Von Essen.
Is there a book you wish you had written?
“102 Minutes – The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers,” by Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn.
If you could meet one author, living or dead, who would it be?
Ernest Hemingway.
What book changed your life?
“All The President’s Men,” by Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein. It helped set me on a path to become a newspaper reporter and eventually do investigative work as a journalist.
You're Irish if...
You send your oldest son to the University of Notre Dame and root for the Irish every college football season.
