Nine Minutes,
Twenty Seconds

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Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds

Reviews: Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds

"A heart-in-your throat story . . . Spellbinding."
Kirkus (starred review)

"Pomerantz has crafted an honest, distressing narrative. He uses the kind of detail that makes you clench your teeth tightly. You feel the terror. It takes will power to read it. But it's worth it." The Times of London "Relentless in its examination of questions, we have all considered, though few of us have been forced to answer for ourselves, it's a remarkable reporting job . . . It's a potent package."
The Rocky Mountain News

"Words like shattering and riveting don't come close to capturing the impact of this fine book, the most powerful I've read in a very long time. The experiences of its heroes-and there is no better way to describe the men and women who populate its pages-will move and haunt for a good long while."
Erik Larson, author of "The Devil in the White City"

"Within just a few pages, Pomerantz establishes himself as the Balzac of turbo prop aircraft . . . I found myself shaking my head in admiration for his indefatigable research . . . He excels at riveting and securing his character portraits, making us understand and care about many of the people who went down with the plane . . . [A] very fine work of nonfiction" Newsday "The crash itself is a relatively small part of this book. It's the people who make this story breathtaking."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"This is a powerfully written and completely absorbing tale with a skillful pacing."
The Dallas Morning News

"Pomerantz chooses to focus on the truest and most expressive details of the central players' hearts and minds. His reporting doesn't disappoint. Such fidelity is the source from which narrative nonfiction draws its power . . . Most significantly, with careful and sensitive reconstruction, he defeats destruction."
The San Francisco Chronicle

"Employing the all-but forgotten craft of dogged, careful, impeccable investigation and reportage, Gary Pomerantz has recreated in the kind of detail that is sure to captivate, a story that on one level is likely to remain a haunting reminder of the risks of ordinary life, and on another, to become a classic of its kind."
Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman

"All told, a great read."
Forbes Magazine

"Pomerantz is a master story-teller . . . After [the crash], passengers, crew and rescue workers reacted across the spectrum of fear, courage and guilt. Their profiles are marvels of reporting, writing and that timeless notion, the human spirit."
The Seattle Times

"It's Pomerantz's sharp writing and reporting that make the book so riveting."
Publisher's Weekly

"This is a powerfully written and completely absorbing tale with a skillful pacing."
The Dallas Morning News




"I loved Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds. While reading it, there were times I became so fraught I thought I couldn't go on, but I simply couldn't tear myself away. Ultimately, this book is an ode to the beauty and dignity of the human spirit."
Dominick Dunne

"There is an indescribable thrill while reading reporting like this. Fact by fact, one precious detail after another, all gathered by a reporter using his feet, Gary Pomerantz gives us flight attendant Robin Fech, seconds away from a crash, calling out, 'brace position,' right out of chapter one, page 23 of her manual. In the flames on the ground, she wanted to take a man's sneakers off so she could pull off his pants. When she looked again, the sneakers were not there. They had melted onto the soles of his feet. This is how Gary Pomerantz reports his book and this is how chilling his facts make it."
Jimmy Breslin

"It's a story whose potential is plainly enormous, and Gary M. Pomerantz rises to the task with the meticulous Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds . . . It's too bad terms like 'gripping' and 'staggering' are lazy reviewers clichés, because they really apply here . . . Some likely will be tempted to say that Pomerantz simply lets the story tell itself, which is an insult to the author's craft. He's very much in control of the story, he just doesn't need to show you. He's in the cockpit, and the cabin door is closed."
The Austin American-Statesman

"What is it about the power of certain combinations of words to pull you in, to suck you in, so that you can't turn the pages fast enough and the outside world falls away? Gary Pomerantz has written pages that leave you breathless; you tear through them like a late passenger sprinting down an airport terminal. When you pull up, you feel windblown, as if you've stood in front of a propeller plane revving up."
Melissa Fay Greene, author of Praying For Sheetrock

"Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds has the power of myth and the immediacy of a next-door neighbor. Gary Pomerantz has performed a breathtaking feat: he has written a modern-day fable that's somehow about each of us, our desire to fly, and our willingness to soar again. Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds will tap into your deepest dreams - and ultimately inspire you to make sure they come true."
Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible

"A brilliant, nail-biting chronicle of an occasion when that one-in-a billion chance actually happened . . . Pomerantz is highly skilled in the ways of narrative, darting from one character to another, all the while ratcheting up the tension, so that one is on tenterhooks throughout . . . Pomerantz manages to cram an extraordinary variety of interrelated tales, some of them so moving that I defy even the hardest-hearted Hannah not to cry. Tears trickled down my cheeks throughout the second half."
The London Sunday Mail

"The crash merely sets the stage for a much larger story of courage and serenity in a time of crisis, determination against overwhelming odds."
Booklist

"A deeply moving account of the extraordinary strengths that ordinary people can display when tragedy confronts them. As emotionally powerful a book as you are likely ever to read."
David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross