American Widow - forthcoming

A few months ago, someone from the Random House Publishing Group posted over on the CBIA (a comic retailer's forum) that they would be sending out a few advance copies of American Widow and asked for any interested retailers to email them to be put on the list for one of those advance copies. As it had been a few months since I put in my request, I just assumed that I wasn't going to get one of the advance copies. Well yesterday my mail carrier delivered a package with a Random House address and I knew that within was my advance copy of American Widow.

Written by Alissa Torres, American Widow is her true story of how her husband, Eddie Torres, had died on September 11, 2001 in the attack on the World Trade Center. Eddie Torres, an immigrant from Colombia, had only just started working for Cantor Fitzgerald the day before and Alissa was seven and a half months pregnant. American Widow is a 224 page $22.00 hardcover graphic novel, published by Villard, and distributed by Random House, to be released September 2nd. Illustrated by Sungyoon Choi, American Widow is his long form comic narrative debut and is very impressive (previously he's mostly done illustrations for The New York Times).
After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, I was surprised that there were not more books like American Widow, and while there were three really good 9-11 comic book anthologies (the proceeds of which went to the Red Cross and 9-11 charities) done by catoonists with their feelings and responses to that day, there hasn't been a personal account of that day that comes close to what Alissa Torres and artist, Choi, achieve with American Widow. American Widow is a heart-breaking account of what a horrible tragedy does to those that are left in its aftermath.

Thank you Alissa Torres for sharing Eddie's life and I hope that with the publication of American Widow that more people who were close to that day, share their loved one's stories because certainly these are the type of stories and lives that will cause readers to think about every day people and the world they live in, in different ways.