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9/12 is the saga of the epic nine-year legal battle waged by
William H. Groner against the City of New York and its contractors
on behalf of the more than ten thousand first responders who became
ill as a result of working on the Ground Zero cleanup. These first
responders - like AT&T Disaster Relief head Gary Acker and New
York Police Department detectives Candiace Baker, Thomas Ryan, and
Mindy Hersh - rushed to Ground Zero and remained to work on the
rescue and recovery mission, which lasted for the next nine months.
Their selfless bravery and humanity were rewarded with horrible
health issues resulting from the toxic stew of chemicals present in
the dust and debris that government officials such as Mayor Rudy
Giuliani and EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman had assured them was
safe. Groner, a lead attorney in the mass tort litigation, fought
for their illnesses to be acknowledged and for them to receive
validation and closure, as well as for compensation - an eventual
aggregate award of more than $800 million. As detailed in 9/12, the
battle for the Ground Zero responders was waged not only in the
courtroom but also in the press, in medical and scientific research
centers, and among politicians at the local, state, and federal
levels, as well as in the halls of Congress to pass the Zadroga
Health and Compensation Act. 9/12 weaves together Groner's
firsthand account with glimpses into the first responders' lives as
they try to understand and overcome their illnesses. The result is
an intimate look into their battles - physical, mental, and legal -
that will leave you cheering for these heroes who, in spite of
everything, would do it all again. Told by Groner and journalist
Tom Teicholz, 9/12 is the story of the brave public servants who
showed up when their country needed them most, of their fight for
redress, and of their victory in the face of the seemingly
insurmountable.
What a pleasure this book affords In these pages one of the
delights of sophisticated conversation lives again. The interviews
collected in this book comprise a treasury of wit. Perelman
(1904-1979) was one of America's best writers and, undeniably, one
of its wittiest talkers. His great ability to take the tired
English language and make it new and shiny was perhaps his most
amazing feat. For his seemingly effortless contributions to the
world of humor and to an avid, exhilarated readership flourishing
over six decades the "New York Times Book Review" declared him a
national treasure.Although he quipped that by profession he was "a
"feuilletonist," 'a maker of little leaves," in these interviews
Perelman is repeatedly reminded that he is a clever genius, but he
never divulges what makes him thus. Spanning his entire career,
these conversations show that from the beginning he was a unique
practitioner and a professional curmudgeon. He discusses his
progress from youthful cartoonist to comic writer. He amuses
listeners with accounts of hilarious adventures in Hollywood
working with the Marx Brothers and later with Mike Todd on "Around
the World in Eighty Days," for which Perelman won an Academy Award
for scriptwriting.His books--"Baby, It's Cold Outside, Chicken
Inspector #23, The Rising Gorge, Crazy Like a Fox, " and
others--showed the master's touch, his play with words, and his
inexhaustible store of humor. His style he characterized as "a
mixture of all the trash I read as a child, all the cliches,
criminal slang, liberal doses of Yiddish, and some of what I
learned in school from impatient teachers." But a better
description was proffered by William Shawn, the editor of "The New
Yorker," who said, "He was a master of the English language, and no
one had put the language to more stunning comic effect than he
did.""
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