Fictional book is set in life of World Trade Center employee day before 9/11

Former Cassville Democrat publisher Jacob W. Brower of Springfield will release his debut book, “September 10,” on Sept. 10, exactly 25 years after the day on which it is set.

The work of fiction follows Jack McCune, a 40-something finance executive working in the World Trade Center, through Monday, Sept. 10, 2001. The book also looks back on McCune’s life to that point. 

The significance of the date is left entirely with the reader. Neither the characters nor the narrator knows what will happen the next day.

Brower said the forgotten ordinariness of the date first drew him to the idea.

“September 10 has always fascinated me because I don’t remember any of it. For most people, it was about as ordinary a Monday as you could imagine.

“This isn’t a September 11 book. There are plenty of those. This is intentionally a September 10 book. It’s about an ordinary day in an ordinary life. There’s no foreshadowing, no ‘little did he know,’ no grand revelation, none of that.

“The bar I set was, if the book were called ‘February 23’ and set in Cassville, would it still be worth reading? If not, I wasn’t interested in writing it.”

Brower said he initially considered approaching the subject through nonfiction.

“I realized the historical record couldn’t tell the kind of story I wanted to tell about an ordinary Monday. So I built the book around one fictional character and wove documented events and period details into his life.

“People who enjoy going down fact-checking rabbit holes as much as I do should have some fun with that.”

The book also draws from some of Brower’s own experiences.

“I wanted the book to reflect the full range of an actual life. Some of it is painful, some of it is tender, and some of it’s ridiculous,” he said. “Jack and I have lived some of the same stories, and a lot of the weirder stuff actually happened. It was the more ordinary things I had to invent.”

Brower said he had completed “a good chunk” of the book before realizing this year marked the 25th anniversary of the day on which it is set.

“Once I realized that, it became important to me that the book be released on that day,” he said.

“September 10” will be available through Amazon and select bookstores. 

A book launch, free and open to the public, will be held at 11 a.m. that day at One More Page, 306 E. Commercial St. in Springfield. The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce will sponsor the event.

Brower was the Cassville Democrat’s publisher from 2013 to 2018. During the time depicted in the book, Brower was a reporter for the Joplin Globe and Missouri Southern State University’s student newspaper, The Chart. 

He is the founder and president of ABM Strategies, a consulting and marketing firm, and continues to write for area publications.