Although The Terror Dream is about the US response to 9/11, I discovered it while writing my thesis on vampirism. I was looking at the idea of the monster in American visual culture, the notion of good v evil, particularly in film.
The contradiction in the title appealed to me. The Terror Dream didn’t seem to make sense – it intrigued me and made me feel there was a lot more to explore. It’s not a heavy read; it’s written very plainly. Faludi is a journalist, so she gets straight to the point.
The book introduced me to a perspective on terrorism I had never encountered before. Faludi says 9/11 triggered a return to the historical idea of the frontier and the invader. She looks at how a nation that is wounded or threatened returns to the traditional tropes and beliefs that made it great in the first place.
I’ve returned to it again now, with what’s happening with Trump. It explains why US culture is fraught with the kind of politics and culture we see in the presidential campaign. You’ve got Trump talking about frontiers, immigration and keeping people out. We have seen a similar response in the UK to the EU referendum.
The Terror Dream changed my way of thinking about the US – its relationship with its own chequered history, the insecurity of being an invader, its attitudes towards its politicians and the values of its media. Coming from Britain, it’s sometimes hard to understand US culture.
It’s still pertinent, seeing the response to terror attacks today, looking in particular at how the past influences the future. What makes this book a continual source of intrigue is that it shows how the act of flying planes into symbols of American economic prowess shakes the historical foundations that led the US to build such monuments in the first place.
I read the book as I was coming to the end of my thesis. It changed my views and I had to rewrite the last couple of chapters as a result. When a book makes you change your whole argument and significantly alters your perspective, you know it’s a good one.
Jessica is a reporter at the Express & Star newspaper in Wolverhampton. The first person in her family to go to university, she completed her M Phil degree at Cambridge University in 2012. She loves ballroom dancing and Peaky Blinders.
The Terror Dream – Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America is published by Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Co, New York.
