Ben Matson’s fiancée died in the 9/11 terror attacks. Or, at least, that’s what Ben has always believed. Lil’s body was never found, but for almost twenty years Ben has been in no doubt that she was on one of the planes that sliced into the World Trade Centre towers – even though she shouldn’t have been. Ben has always been bothered by some of the inconsistencies about that day, and how the resulting war on terror has overshadowed the importance of the original events as if the US government wanted to go to war to make us forget about what actually started it all, but you cannot bring your loved ones back from the dead no matter how much you want to. So, like the rest of the world, Ben has eventually found a way to move on with his life.

Until now, when Ben finds out there was another plane crash the world was not told about, and that the wreckage which has been recovered from that crash may force him to question everything he thought he knew. Ben is on a mission to reveal the truth of 9/11, but a lot of powerful people have gone to a lot of trouble to keep that truth buried…

Part of the magic of great fiction is that it allows us to see the world through new eyes and also, sometimes, re-evaluate events which have shaped the course of history and our lives. Christopher Priest attempts to do both these things in An American Story, but he is only partially successful. As a meditation on loss and an examination of possibly flawed memory, An American Story works quite well. But as a work of fiction that will keep you turning the pages, there’s too little here to enjoy. In fact, An American Story ultimately feels like a novel that really wants to be an important piece of 9/11 journalism but never had enough information behind it to back the journalism up, so Priest did what he does best and turned it into fiction instead.

Maybe Priest’s die-hard fans will be kinder to this, but everyone else (besides some well-read conspiracy theorists) should probably dig out their copy of The Extremes and remind themselves how wonderfully Priest writes when he is really on form.

AN AMERICAN STORY / AUTHOR: CHRISTOPHER PRIEST / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: 6TH SEPTEMBER 2018