The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Two years after the attacks of 9/11, a survivor named Tania Head started posting to survivor's forums online. She was one of only 19 people who had been above the point of impact in the South Tower of the World Trade Center and survived. Her remarkable story of escape -- her arm nearly torn off, her assistant decapitated, the fireman who led her to safety as the tower collapsed, her days of unconsciousness in a New York City burn unit -- was made all the more heartrending by the fact that her husband died in the North Tower.
In a short period of time, her forceful, magnetic personality, combined with her amazing story, made her the face -- and the heart -- of the survivors' network. She helped found and became the beloved president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network and lobbied successfully to have the 9/11 survivors recognized on par with rescue workers and the victims' families. She gave tours of Ground Zero to visitors and dignitaries such as Rudy Guiliani and Eliot Spitzer. She was instrumental in the saving of the "survivors' staircase," which had been slated for demolition. She got the survivors admitted to the official anniversary ceremonies.
In time, though, discrepancies in her stories started to be noticed. She grew increasingly paranoid and wary of the press and started to have something of a split personality, being unimaginably cruel at times to other survivors -- people who were supposed to be her best friends. Eventually her story was entirely discredited, and in September 2007 the New York Times revealed her to be a true fraud -- she had not even been in the United States on the date of the attacks, and not a single part of her story was true.
I know a couple of people who I believe to be pathological liars, and as bizarre as their fabrications are, this blows them out of the water. Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that Tania Head made no money off of her deception -- her motivation has never become known, but she received no monetary benefit (and, in fact, spent sums of her own money on the survivors' cause) and collected only acclaim, concern, and love.
I couldn't put this book down. The first part of it goes into Tania's (fabricated) story in great detail. The reader knows from the beginning -- from the title and the information on the book flap -- that none of it is true, which makes it even more compelling. The amount of research about the attacks that Tania must have done in order to concoct her story had to have been astounding. By the time I reached the end, I couldn't decide whether I should be angry, sad, disgusted, or some combination of all of the above. What would ever lead someone to do something like this? Did she do it out of cruelty to the true survivors? Was her own life so sad and meaningless that this was the only way she could feel loved and appreciated? Mostly, though, I felt betrayed right along with the real survivors.
Publication date 4/3/2012
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I have never heard about this...I must get this book now. Also, do you own a copy if so may I steal it? Sounds amazing!
Posted by: Momma Hunt | Tuesday, April 03, 2012 at 01:22 PM