jumping in late on this story, because I only just got round to listening to it. My life has been beyond hectic in the last few weeks.
I must say i wasn't really a fan of this story. I didn't find it offensive, nor did it anger me, I just found is slightly underwhelming. I guess the reason i disliked it can be best explained with reference to this week's story about Hurricane Katrina, so some very minor spoilers are coming up if you've not listened to that yet.
The think about Saints and Sinners (ect) is that it will still be a very effective and meaningful story in ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years. It won't matter that the disaster has long faded into history, the story will still be tragic and it will still effect the people who read it in a deep and meaningful way. Meanwhile, once 9/11 fades from our collective consciousness (and it will, eventually), this story will lose its effect. It will not be a deep, meaningful tale of tragedy and loss. People wont have long discussion threads about it and no-one will refuse to listen to in because it touches a nerve.
The problem with this story is that it feeds of the fact that 9/11 is still very raw, especially in the USA. As a Brit, i don't have anywhere near the same emotional link with 9/11, so this story really didn't do much for me. It was interesting for a while, but it never really picked up. It made no effort to connect with me and draw me into the story. It seems to be written on the assumption that 9/11 is a sensitive issue for the reader/listener (a pretty safe assumption in the USA atm). By contrast Saints and Sinners drew me in and made me sympathize with people in a disaster to which i have no personal connection. Something actually happened beyond the initial shock of the disaster itself, whereas this story was stuck in that single moment of shock, without ever going past it and trying to draw people into the story for the human element. We never related to the falling girl and no plot to speak of ever happened, so i was left wondering why i should care, beyond the fact that I have great sympathy for everyone effected by 9/11
I guess the best way to summarize my thoughts on both stories is to say that Saints and Sinners would be effective, even if it wasn't about Hurricane Katrina, whereas Ghosts of New York would be far less effective if it were about anything other than 9/11.