Is it possible to be traumatized by a book?

In Middletown, America, Gail Sheehy's new book about a New Jersey town devastated by "9-11", the author writes about the danger of "secondary trauma" for volunteers who worked with people affected by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Reading about the horrific experiences inflicted on the family members and survivors whose lives were torn apart on that day is a far cry from being anywhere close to the event. Nevertheless, as you make your way through this detailed account of the effects of the attack, it is hard not to be overcome by a palpable feeling of dread and despair as the author takes you deep into her subjects' reactions to losing loved ones or recovering body parts from Ground Zero.

Sheehy wants this to be a "book of hope" and gets there in the end, but along the way, she takes you on a ride through one community's trauma that will make you shudder at even the faintest thought of going through it yourself.

The author, best known for Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, focuses on Middletown, N.J., an area 20 miles from the World Trade Center. Fifty people from the vicinity died Sept. 11, 2001, "the largest concentrated death toll" from the attacks.

The book's first traumatic moment, not surprisingly, begins with family members witnessing the events on television. Anna Egan was on the phone with her husband, Michael, who worked on the 104th floor of the South Tower, when she saw the second plane slam into his building and "then the line went dead."

Kristen Breitweiser "tuned in to the Today show just in time to watch the top of his (her husband's) building explode - right where she knew he was. Her insides dissolved into jelly and she fell, screaming, onto her knees."

If you can get through this initial shock, you are faced with the less dramatic, but equally disturbing accounts of the families dealing with the grief that followed. Sheehy does an exhaustive job of cataloging the wide range of reactions in the community.

Many of the stories that she tells are not surprising: a pregnant widow who was so numb from losing her husband that her "spirit was not present for the birth"; the son who saw his father's building explode while watching television at school who later couldn't talk about the attack; and a man who escaped from the towers and suffered such severe survivor's guilt that he developed physical and emotional symptoms worse than those of people who lost spouses.

One widow "measured her progress in recovery by how many aisles she could get through in the supermarket before her eye fell on one of her husband's favorite items and she dissolved in tears."

Other details are more surprising. Sheehy writes about "the sanctification of the victims," from sources as diverse as The New York Times, rabbis and priests, friends and relatives. The practice turned the memories of loved ones from real people with human flaws into saints, "symbolic as well as real victims of this atrocity against America."

In one victims support group, a mother who had lost an adult son couldn't relate to the widows, because, while a spouse could remarry, she would never be able to have another child.

The book describes women who not only had to absorb the shock of losing a spouse, deal with traumatized children, handle piles of paperwork related to life insurance, government agencies, lawyers and accountants, but who also, ironically, had pressures caused by well intentioned people, including "parents who decamped in your home, and who needed hands-on assistance to operate your shower and oven and driving directions for every shopping trip."

In addition to examining the lives of individual Middletowners, the book casts a bright light on the way in which the community handled the trauma of losing so many of its members. According to Sheehy, this part of New Jersey consists mostly of affluent suburbs whose residents lived in large houses cloistered from even their closest neighbors.

Writing about the victims who left their homes on Sept. 11, she describes a deliberate ethic of seclusion. "Most clicked out of their garages in the dark of early morning, took the train or ferry across the river, and clicked back into their garages after dark. They didn't think they needed to know their neighbors or depend on the community."

Sheehy paints an unvarnished picture of the local response. From a Catholic priest who "was living up to a reputation for being brusque and insensitive," to self-important community leaders who raised money for the victims' families and fumbled its distribution, to the "status conscious" nature of the area that led people "to speculate on the financial conditions of their neighbors," she describes the way in which the attacks revealed fissures that previously had only been bubbling beneath the community's surface.

However, she also tells the story of people who rallied to help their neighbors: clergy who brought together diverse congregations to aid in the grieving process; local social service agencies and individuals who helped victims' families deal with their enormous material and emotional needs; the district attorney who visited the local mosque to demonstrate his commitment to protect the Muslim community from retaliation; and finally, a few Middletown widows who continue to demand explanations from leaders in Washington about the failure to prevent the attacks and the subsequent war on terrorism and its relationship to the invasion of Iraq, to name just a few.

In telling the detailed stories of dozens of people, Sheehy also provides an exhaustive examination of the relationship between grief and trauma. Using the longer range experience of survivors, rescue workers, and mental health professionals from the Oklahoma City bombing, she once again uncovers issues that may surprise readers: The trauma of the attacks may not hit some people for two to three years; "compulsory debriefing" of rescue personnel immediately after the event can backfire; mental health workers who worked with victims' families can develop "serious physical illnesses"; therapy that helps people repress the trauma and lock it away in their minds can be better than talking about the events too soon and being re-traumatized once again, to name only a few.

In Middletown, America, Sheehy demonstrates an incredible sensitivity to the situation and people she interviewed. Her skill is reflected by the unfettered access she was granted to the intimate details of people's lives.

Next week, as the television networks replay the footage of the attacks, pouring salt in the survivors' and the nation's wounds, it will likely come at the expense of examining how the attacks have really changed our nation. Sheehy makes a start with this book.

But such introspection comes at a cost; before picking up the book, you have to decide if you are prepared to read through the teardrops that you will leave on the page.

Steve Galpern is a freelance writer living in Denver.