Falling Man, Don DeLillo’s magnificent, haunting novel about September 11, begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the altered lives of a few New Yorkers.

First there is Keith, a lawyer who walks out of the rubble and back into the world of his estranged wife, Lianne, and their young son, Justin. In the weeks and months after that day, Lianne probes Keith’s moods, tries to reconcile two versions of her shadowy husband. Justin turns furtive, speaks in monosyllables and stands at the window, scanning the sky for more planes. These are lives choreographed by loss and grief, emotional landscapes reconfigured by the enormous force of history.

DeLillo’s love of New York – its pluck and verve, the history it carries, the sudden intimacies of strangers on its streets – makes Falling Man one of his most resonant novels, heartbreaking and beautiful.