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Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice
This is the story of the terrifying, tragic, surreal, and ultimately inspiring events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon: the preparations of the bombers; the race; the emergency response to the explosions; the massive deployment of city, state, and federal law enforcement personnel; and the nation's and the world's response before, during, and after the apprehension of the suspects. Through the eyes of seven principal characters including the bombers, the wounded, a cop, and a doctor, Boston Globe reporters Helman and Russell trace the paths that brought them together.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2014
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April 26, 2016
On April 15, 2013, two pressure-cooker bombs, planted by Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The blasts killed three people, injured upwards of 250 (of which 16 lost their legs), and put an entire region into lockdown.
I was 1,500 miles away when the bombing took place. I’ve visited Boston a couple times, but I had no friends or family there, no direct connection. Yet the bombings gripped me that day, and have held me ever since. It recently occurred to me why.
Running a marathon is the one great athletic achievement that anyone can accomplish. Despite spending hours walking on my toes in high school, I was never able to dunk a basketball. No matter how much time I spent in the batting cages, I could never hit a curve. In the realm of sports, hard work is not enough. You need some god-given talent. That’s not true with a marathon. Anyone who puts in the work can finish. That’s what makes it special. It’s a relatively arbitrary distance (according to the ancient histories, it’s the distance Phidippides ran to Athens, bearing news of the victory at the Battle of Marathon), but it has come to have great meaning.
A few weeks ago, while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was still on trial for his life, I finished my third marathon. It had been six years since my second, and I’d forgotten how shiver-inducing powerful it is to run in one. Thousands of people line the route. Everyone is cheering and happy and helpful. There are funny signs; people handing out shots of booze; little kids giving high-fives. I was at the tail end of the race, with the other scratch runners, but the spectators cheered as loud for me as for the guy who finished two hours earlier.
The small coterie of elite runners compete against each other to win. For everyone else, winning means something else. A Boston qualifying time. A personal best. Just to finish. Or just to finish without loss of bladder/bowel control. A marathon is a place of relentless good cheer and optimism. It is a place that proudly spouts corny aphorisms about “finishing the race” right in the face of a cooly cynical world.
And these two assholes brought their bombs to this wonderful place, this peaceful, inoffensive place, with its irrepressible spirit, and they set off their bombs. It’s something that’s hard to shake from your mind. Something that, to paraphrase David Letterman after 9/11, wouldn’t make sense if you lived to be a thousand.
Long Mile Home tells the story of the attack, and the wild manhunt that followed. It is written by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, who are both reporters for The Boston Globe, which did a lot of sensational journalism in the aftermath of the bombings. Old-school newspapers do an invaluable job of collecting the material for history’s first draft, and that is definitely the case here.
Helman and Russell focus their book by following five individuals affected by the marathon attacks. Dr. David King participated in the race, returned home, and then headed to his hospital to treat victims in the aftermath. David McGillivray, the longtime race director, had just started to run the course himself when news reached him of the attacks. Boston police officer Shana Cottone was near the finish line when the bombs went off, thereby making her among the first first responders. Spectator Krystle Campbell died of her injuries, while Heather Abbott lost a leg. The narrative, in typical journalistic fashion, follows this representative handful before, during, and after the doomed race.
Long Mile Home is also interspersed with chapters dealing with the Tsarnaev brothers. The authors briefly trace the Tsarnaev family history, from Chechnya to Kyrgyzstan to Dagestan and finally to the United States. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar did not have a terrible time assimilating. Tamerlan attended school, nurtured hopes for a boxing career, married an American woman, and eventually became a devout Muslim. Dzhokhar attended UMass-Dartmouth, used Twitter, and sold a little pot on the side. In other words, he could have been your typical suburban-born American college student.
These two young men, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, are the riddles in the enigma. They are repellant, but also vital to the story. Attempting to understand why they did what they did is impossible to resist; at the end of the day, however, no explanation will ever suffice. The type of person who leaves a bomb at the foot of a child stands outside humanity. There is no context on earth that justifies the act. Millions of people on earth have grievances; it is the rare person who’s missing that moral link.
Despite the authors’ efforts, the sections on the Tsarnaev brothers feel incomplete. This is probably a function of the book’s publication date, roughly a year after the bombings. The story is still unfolding, and a lot of new information came out in the course of Dzhokhar’s trial, which had not yet started when Long Mile Home hit the shelves. There are ancillary and tertiary questions surrounding the brothers that don’t get a lot of expounding, specifically regarding Tamerlan’s possible role in a Waltham triple murder, and the part played by Tamerlan’s wife. (The government is speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue. At the press conference following Dzhokhar’s death verdict, the US Attorney’s office said, essentially, that the case was both closed and ongoing).
The most riveting part of Long Mile Home centers on the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers. In the days after the bombings, video of the two freelancing terrorists was released to the media. The brothers – despite not yet having been identified – panicked, executed an MIT police officer for his weapon (which they could not release from the holster), carjacked a Mercedes-Benz SUV, and got into a shootout with Watertown police. The governor of Massachusetts controversially ordered citizens to “shelter in place” and a good portion of the country sat riveted to their television screens while Dzhokhar was hunted down.
The authors are strangely uncritical of law enforcement’s performance in the manhunt. The gun-battle in the streets of Watertown, for instance, resembled a circular firing squad, with police shooting at police. One official claimed that the Tsarnaev brothers had an “arsenal”, when in fact they had one pistol and a bunch of homemade explosive devices. An officer wounded during the firefight was most likely hit by a fellow officer. During that chaotic night, a state trooper unloaded the clip of his M4 on a black pickup truck – a truck carrying two other police officers.
Tamerlan was killed on the street, his death helped along by his brother who drove over him in his escape. Dzhokhar’s escape put the city into lockdown. The police did a house-to-house search but did not find anything. (This search raised questions for me, but apparently not for the authors). Despite their supposed thoroughness, the police did not find anyone. It was a man named David Henneberry who found Dzhokhar in the boat he had stored in his backyard. Henneberry’s house was two-tenths of a mile from where Dzhokhar had ditched the stolen Mercedes. This seems like a pretty big oversight, and begs the question: how was the search actually conducted? But Helman and Russell shrug this off by saying “[a]nswers to such questions would have to come later.”
There is an undeniable, visceral excitement in the descriptions of the manhunt. The true power of Long Mile Home, however, comes from following the survivors during the aftermath and recovery. The potential for easy triumphalism – #BostonStrong – is thankfully avoided. Instead, Helman and Russell go to great lengths to show the incredible trials and adversity faced by the survivors. Heather Abbott’s story is especially memorable. She gave the authors incredible access into her post-bombing life, and provides agonizing details about overcoming the loss of her leg. The fantastic technology poured into modern prosthetic devices (spurred, as the authors note, by the Iraq War) mask the physical difficulties attendant to losing a limb: the phantom pain, the loss of balance, the change in gait, the excruciating aches. Her odyssey is compelling.
Long Mile Home doesn’t try to ram any lessons down your throat. The stories of these five people – and hundreds of others – are the lesson. Once upon a time two bad men went to a race and set off two bombs. Hundreds of good people went to help the injured, and those people were supported by thousands more. Something like this – a bombing, a shooting – will happen again, because there will always be bad people in the world. The only comfort is that the good people will always outnumber the bad.
I was 1,500 miles away when the bombing took place. I’ve visited Boston a couple times, but I had no friends or family there, no direct connection. Yet the bombings gripped me that day, and have held me ever since. It recently occurred to me why.
Running a marathon is the one great athletic achievement that anyone can accomplish. Despite spending hours walking on my toes in high school, I was never able to dunk a basketball. No matter how much time I spent in the batting cages, I could never hit a curve. In the realm of sports, hard work is not enough. You need some god-given talent. That’s not true with a marathon. Anyone who puts in the work can finish. That’s what makes it special. It’s a relatively arbitrary distance (according to the ancient histories, it’s the distance Phidippides ran to Athens, bearing news of the victory at the Battle of Marathon), but it has come to have great meaning.
A few weeks ago, while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was still on trial for his life, I finished my third marathon. It had been six years since my second, and I’d forgotten how shiver-inducing powerful it is to run in one. Thousands of people line the route. Everyone is cheering and happy and helpful. There are funny signs; people handing out shots of booze; little kids giving high-fives. I was at the tail end of the race, with the other scratch runners, but the spectators cheered as loud for me as for the guy who finished two hours earlier.
The small coterie of elite runners compete against each other to win. For everyone else, winning means something else. A Boston qualifying time. A personal best. Just to finish. Or just to finish without loss of bladder/bowel control. A marathon is a place of relentless good cheer and optimism. It is a place that proudly spouts corny aphorisms about “finishing the race” right in the face of a cooly cynical world.
And these two assholes brought their bombs to this wonderful place, this peaceful, inoffensive place, with its irrepressible spirit, and they set off their bombs. It’s something that’s hard to shake from your mind. Something that, to paraphrase David Letterman after 9/11, wouldn’t make sense if you lived to be a thousand.
Long Mile Home tells the story of the attack, and the wild manhunt that followed. It is written by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, who are both reporters for The Boston Globe, which did a lot of sensational journalism in the aftermath of the bombings. Old-school newspapers do an invaluable job of collecting the material for history’s first draft, and that is definitely the case here.
Helman and Russell focus their book by following five individuals affected by the marathon attacks. Dr. David King participated in the race, returned home, and then headed to his hospital to treat victims in the aftermath. David McGillivray, the longtime race director, had just started to run the course himself when news reached him of the attacks. Boston police officer Shana Cottone was near the finish line when the bombs went off, thereby making her among the first first responders. Spectator Krystle Campbell died of her injuries, while Heather Abbott lost a leg. The narrative, in typical journalistic fashion, follows this representative handful before, during, and after the doomed race.
Long Mile Home is also interspersed with chapters dealing with the Tsarnaev brothers. The authors briefly trace the Tsarnaev family history, from Chechnya to Kyrgyzstan to Dagestan and finally to the United States. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar did not have a terrible time assimilating. Tamerlan attended school, nurtured hopes for a boxing career, married an American woman, and eventually became a devout Muslim. Dzhokhar attended UMass-Dartmouth, used Twitter, and sold a little pot on the side. In other words, he could have been your typical suburban-born American college student.
These two young men, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, are the riddles in the enigma. They are repellant, but also vital to the story. Attempting to understand why they did what they did is impossible to resist; at the end of the day, however, no explanation will ever suffice. The type of person who leaves a bomb at the foot of a child stands outside humanity. There is no context on earth that justifies the act. Millions of people on earth have grievances; it is the rare person who’s missing that moral link.
Despite the authors’ efforts, the sections on the Tsarnaev brothers feel incomplete. This is probably a function of the book’s publication date, roughly a year after the bombings. The story is still unfolding, and a lot of new information came out in the course of Dzhokhar’s trial, which had not yet started when Long Mile Home hit the shelves. There are ancillary and tertiary questions surrounding the brothers that don’t get a lot of expounding, specifically regarding Tamerlan’s possible role in a Waltham triple murder, and the part played by Tamerlan’s wife. (The government is speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue. At the press conference following Dzhokhar’s death verdict, the US Attorney’s office said, essentially, that the case was both closed and ongoing).
The most riveting part of Long Mile Home centers on the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers. In the days after the bombings, video of the two freelancing terrorists was released to the media. The brothers – despite not yet having been identified – panicked, executed an MIT police officer for his weapon (which they could not release from the holster), carjacked a Mercedes-Benz SUV, and got into a shootout with Watertown police. The governor of Massachusetts controversially ordered citizens to “shelter in place” and a good portion of the country sat riveted to their television screens while Dzhokhar was hunted down.
The authors are strangely uncritical of law enforcement’s performance in the manhunt. The gun-battle in the streets of Watertown, for instance, resembled a circular firing squad, with police shooting at police. One official claimed that the Tsarnaev brothers had an “arsenal”, when in fact they had one pistol and a bunch of homemade explosive devices. An officer wounded during the firefight was most likely hit by a fellow officer. During that chaotic night, a state trooper unloaded the clip of his M4 on a black pickup truck – a truck carrying two other police officers.
Tamerlan was killed on the street, his death helped along by his brother who drove over him in his escape. Dzhokhar’s escape put the city into lockdown. The police did a house-to-house search but did not find anything. (This search raised questions for me, but apparently not for the authors). Despite their supposed thoroughness, the police did not find anyone. It was a man named David Henneberry who found Dzhokhar in the boat he had stored in his backyard. Henneberry’s house was two-tenths of a mile from where Dzhokhar had ditched the stolen Mercedes. This seems like a pretty big oversight, and begs the question: how was the search actually conducted? But Helman and Russell shrug this off by saying “[a]nswers to such questions would have to come later.”
There is an undeniable, visceral excitement in the descriptions of the manhunt. The true power of Long Mile Home, however, comes from following the survivors during the aftermath and recovery. The potential for easy triumphalism – #BostonStrong – is thankfully avoided. Instead, Helman and Russell go to great lengths to show the incredible trials and adversity faced by the survivors. Heather Abbott’s story is especially memorable. She gave the authors incredible access into her post-bombing life, and provides agonizing details about overcoming the loss of her leg. The fantastic technology poured into modern prosthetic devices (spurred, as the authors note, by the Iraq War) mask the physical difficulties attendant to losing a limb: the phantom pain, the loss of balance, the change in gait, the excruciating aches. Her odyssey is compelling.
Long Mile Home doesn’t try to ram any lessons down your throat. The stories of these five people – and hundreds of others – are the lesson. Once upon a time two bad men went to a race and set off two bombs. Hundreds of good people went to help the injured, and those people were supported by thousands more. Something like this – a bombing, a shooting – will happen again, because there will always be bad people in the world. The only comfort is that the good people will always outnumber the bad.
April 12, 2014
Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, who are reporters for The Boston Globe, is an absorbing, balanced and well-written account which brings back images of the fear and chaos that ruled the city in the immediate aftermath of the attack. However, the Long Mile Home is not just about a city under attack, it is also about hope, courage, determination and justice.
Piecing together valuable information from different sources and from first-person accounts, Scott Helman and Jenna Russell painted the story of a city that refused to cower in fear. When explosives ripped apart the crowds at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, a certain sense of satisfaction must have rubbed into the hearts of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But it was short-lived. Though the two bombs at the finish line killed three people and wounded more than 260, launching a manhunt that gripped the United States and the world, the dogged fortitude and resilience of the people prevailed.
Many will remember the Boston Marathon for the 26 seconds of silence to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Yet, in a tragic twist to the tale, the race itself came under attack. Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell is a compelling story that tells how a community arose as one, stood as one and lived together as one as a result of one sinister plot.
Piecing together valuable information from different sources and from first-person accounts, Scott Helman and Jenna Russell painted the story of a city that refused to cower in fear. When explosives ripped apart the crowds at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, a certain sense of satisfaction must have rubbed into the hearts of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But it was short-lived. Though the two bombs at the finish line killed three people and wounded more than 260, launching a manhunt that gripped the United States and the world, the dogged fortitude and resilience of the people prevailed.
Many will remember the Boston Marathon for the 26 seconds of silence to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Yet, in a tragic twist to the tale, the race itself came under attack. Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell is a compelling story that tells how a community arose as one, stood as one and lived together as one as a result of one sinister plot.
February 19, 2016
While two brothers wanted the world to remember April 15, 2013 for many reasons, I will not remember it the way they intended people to. I will remember April 15th, 2013 for the bravery, courage, and strength of a city that jumped to it’s feet the moment it was knocked down and fought back with love and kindness.
From the Pulitzer-Prize winning team, two of Boston Globe’s reporters bring a near perfect account of the Boston Marathon Bombings and the aftermath. I have an interest in true-crime non-fiction books, and this one did not disappoint in any capacity. Were most accounts pertaining to the Boston Bombings focused all to much on the bombers and not enough on the victims, Helman and Russell did a fine job of devoting the majority of this book to the victims and survivors. One really feels they know the different people in the this book just by the excellent coverage of each person.
The Tsarnaev Brothers, in my humble opinion, didn’t attack Bostonians because of extremist religious views, but rather because they has failed time and time again in their own personal lives, thus trying to take control of a situation and control the outcome in their own way. A terrible and gruesome way, but their own ends to their personal means. A combination of psychological issues, trouble adjusting to a new country and failings along the way are what did these young men in. What really stuck out in my mind is that the entire family, from the father to mother and to the two sons, is that all thought they were going to come to America and everything was going to be wonderful. Despite coming from Russia in an area that was hard to get by, one would think that such background would prepare the Tsarnaev family for the hard work they would have to put in to make their dreams in America come true. That was furtherest from the truth. Not one of the family members wanted to put in the hard work to have the same successful outcome that many immigrants have so hard fought to achieve when coming to America. To put a personal twist on this, it insults me that the Tsarnaev thought it was just going to be handed to them. My father’s side of my family came through Ellis Island via Italy when many others did the same thing in the 1930’s. My mother’s side coming on one the journeys across the ocean as well from England after the many trips the Mayflower made back and forth to the New World. A lot of families in this country have similar stories of immigration from difficult countries where oppression and hardship are just the few things that made whole families uproot and move on to better places. It did not come easy for any other families to make do in a new country with barely a thing to their name. Why the Tsarnaevs’ thought they were any different is beyond me. Excuses and missed signals were what let the Tsarnaev brothers to fall through the cracks and this book does a great job pointing that out, while still showing that even no matter what the government did or did not know about them, they still were both on a downward spiral that seemed hard to stop or reverse.
Beyond what was said about the brothers, one other person in this book really stood out to me above everything else in this cautionary tale. Krystle Campbell will always remain in my mind as someone to remember and learn from her beautiful, short life. For whatever reason, despite being touched and moved by all the victims and survivors, she for some reason has really hit a cord within me. The authors did an incredible job bringing her personality and life to full focus. Someone who never thought ill of other people and was always there for another human being no matter if she knew the person for five minutes or years, she was kind and giving without hesitation. Without even knowing it, she took the most brutal impact of all the victims and survivors simply for being the wrong place. Even in death, she is remembered for always giving to those less fortunate or in need of a hand. Her life indeed something to measure oneself to and stop and help someone even if for five minutes a day just as Krystle did countless times.
If you want one concise source that touches upon everything leading up, during, and after the Boston Bombing, then this book is for you. It reads like a news article with all the facts without lagging at all, like some true-crime books can have happen to them. The authors cover a lot of well known city officials, law enforcement, victims and survivors, first responders, media sources including the Boston Globe, social media outlets and tons of other resources. Nothing is left untouched, including talking about their own (Boston Globe) misreporting that happened during the chaotic days to get the most information. They also touch upon false leads often fueled by online sites such as Reddit and the general population in their hast trying to help local and federal agents in the hunt for the killers, which caused much misinformation and concussion. The Boston Globe did a fantastic job covering the Boston Marathon Bombing and rightfully so the entire team was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their efforts days before this book was officially published. I am guessing that once the book gets a second printing, such recognition might be added to the cover saying as much. The book officially has two main authors, however it was the entire team at the Boston Globe that they had backing them and once again, a fantastic job on the reporting and this book.
March 16, 2021
An excellent account of the bombing in 2013, at the finish line of The Boston Marathon. Written by 2 Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, from The Boston Globe.
Their account takes you minute by minute from the start of race to the days/weeks immediately following the attack. They delve into the lives of the victims, the race organizers and the 2 Chechen brothers who orchestrated the attack.
Well written, researched and a book hard to put down once you start reading.
Their account takes you minute by minute from the start of race to the days/weeks immediately following the attack. They delve into the lives of the victims, the race organizers and the 2 Chechen brothers who orchestrated the attack.
Well written, researched and a book hard to put down once you start reading.
December 17, 2014
It’s incredibly hard to write this review, just as this is an incredibly hard book to read. Neither my off-the-mark review nor the difficulty of this book should keep you away, though. Why is it so difficult to write? After all, it’s not an unfamiliar subject. It’s not something I don’t know enough about, especially after reading. Yet, it’s something I haven’t felt as much as so many others.
Of course, tragedies like 2013’s Boston Marathon bombing touch everyone in the nation. We all feel it, to some degree. The degree I felt it may have been little – I didn’t know a single person from Boston ((this has changed since the bombing)), I’ve never been to city, before 2014, I’d hardly even heard of Copley Square.
What I do know a little bit about is running, even running a marathon. Granted, I’ve only ran one, not in Boston, but in Minnesota, but it was enough to understand just how much goes into Marathon Day. You train for months, maybe even a year. You test your muscles, push them to the extremes, reach their limits. You plan weeks ahead how to handle Marathon Day, where you’ll stay the night before, what to eat the morning of, how much you should run the day before, where you can expect your family to be standing. Even for the spectators the day of the marathon is a big deal: lawn chairs are set up, oranges, watermelons, water bottles, candies are bought to be passed out to the runners trooping by. Signs are painted, plans are made.
I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but for me, there were points after the 20 mile mark where I hit that wall, thinking “I just need to stop here,” and realizing, I can’t. There’s a point in the race where you just can’t not get to the end. Your family’s waiting there. Your bags waiting there – cell phone included. Sure, you could stop on the road, but to get home, you need to cross that finish line.
I can’t imagine what it would feel like to hear you’re not even allowed to get to the end because a bomb has gone off.
It’s been a year, and still, the wounds feel so fresh. After all, victims of the bombings are still in rehabilitation, still mourning lost loved ones or lost limbs, still getting their lives back to normal, or at least to a new normal.
I’d have to say, for how fresh the wounds are, Long Mile Home is an amazingly balanced read. Written by two Boston Globe reporters, authors Jenna Russell and Scott Helman keep a remarkable cool under the subject of their book.
Memories of lost ones are apt memorials – recognizing the people for who they were, never resorting to martyring or putting people on undeserved pedestals. Stories from survivors (including Heather Abbott, a woman forced to make the decision whether or not to keep her foot and lower leg, and if not, just how much to let go) and those at the scene (race director Dave McGillivray; surgeon David King, who went straight from finishing the marathon in 3:12:00(ish) to saving lives in the hospital trauma center) are told firsthand, free from hyperbole and exaggerated emotions.
What I appreciated the most – the way authors handled the fact that the bombings were classified as an act of terrorism. Hisham Aidi talked very well about the way, just after the bombings before suspects were revealed and perpetrators were caught, Muslims around the country hoped in the deepest parts of their hearts that the bombers would be some WASP Americans, people tortured by mental illness or the like, rather than an Islmaic extremist acting on their own in last month’s Rebel Music – no true Muslims supported these actions, and they didn’t want the slow-forming scabs of 9/11 to be picked off by an incident like this.
Of course, as we know now, the bombers did unfortunately believe their actions were part of a larger religious cause, they were darker-skinned and had funny, foreign-sounding names, just pulling back the same feelings of hatred from a decade earlier. I truly, truly appreciated the way the authors cast the bombers a OUTSIDERS, boys with little to no connection to the actual religion of Islam, boys in troubled cycles of behavior. They even go on to point out the injustice done once the first videotapes of the brothers were released and internet witch hunts began, vigilantes naming innocents as the causer of the crime.
I don’t know how much more to say – you know the story, although not as well as you will after reading the book. It’s as fair and balanced as Fox News claims to be. It’s an incredibly hard read, mainly to stomach the whole story and all its details. I guess my best advice is to read it slowly, absorb as much as you can, and just pray for healing for the city.
Of course, tragedies like 2013’s Boston Marathon bombing touch everyone in the nation. We all feel it, to some degree. The degree I felt it may have been little – I didn’t know a single person from Boston ((this has changed since the bombing)), I’ve never been to city, before 2014, I’d hardly even heard of Copley Square.
What I do know a little bit about is running, even running a marathon. Granted, I’ve only ran one, not in Boston, but in Minnesota, but it was enough to understand just how much goes into Marathon Day. You train for months, maybe even a year. You test your muscles, push them to the extremes, reach their limits. You plan weeks ahead how to handle Marathon Day, where you’ll stay the night before, what to eat the morning of, how much you should run the day before, where you can expect your family to be standing. Even for the spectators the day of the marathon is a big deal: lawn chairs are set up, oranges, watermelons, water bottles, candies are bought to be passed out to the runners trooping by. Signs are painted, plans are made.
I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but for me, there were points after the 20 mile mark where I hit that wall, thinking “I just need to stop here,” and realizing, I can’t. There’s a point in the race where you just can’t not get to the end. Your family’s waiting there. Your bags waiting there – cell phone included. Sure, you could stop on the road, but to get home, you need to cross that finish line.
I can’t imagine what it would feel like to hear you’re not even allowed to get to the end because a bomb has gone off.
It’s been a year, and still, the wounds feel so fresh. After all, victims of the bombings are still in rehabilitation, still mourning lost loved ones or lost limbs, still getting their lives back to normal, or at least to a new normal.
I’d have to say, for how fresh the wounds are, Long Mile Home is an amazingly balanced read. Written by two Boston Globe reporters, authors Jenna Russell and Scott Helman keep a remarkable cool under the subject of their book.
Memories of lost ones are apt memorials – recognizing the people for who they were, never resorting to martyring or putting people on undeserved pedestals. Stories from survivors (including Heather Abbott, a woman forced to make the decision whether or not to keep her foot and lower leg, and if not, just how much to let go) and those at the scene (race director Dave McGillivray; surgeon David King, who went straight from finishing the marathon in 3:12:00(ish) to saving lives in the hospital trauma center) are told firsthand, free from hyperbole and exaggerated emotions.
What I appreciated the most – the way authors handled the fact that the bombings were classified as an act of terrorism. Hisham Aidi talked very well about the way, just after the bombings before suspects were revealed and perpetrators were caught, Muslims around the country hoped in the deepest parts of their hearts that the bombers would be some WASP Americans, people tortured by mental illness or the like, rather than an Islmaic extremist acting on their own in last month’s Rebel Music – no true Muslims supported these actions, and they didn’t want the slow-forming scabs of 9/11 to be picked off by an incident like this.
Of course, as we know now, the bombers did unfortunately believe their actions were part of a larger religious cause, they were darker-skinned and had funny, foreign-sounding names, just pulling back the same feelings of hatred from a decade earlier. I truly, truly appreciated the way the authors cast the bombers a OUTSIDERS, boys with little to no connection to the actual religion of Islam, boys in troubled cycles of behavior. They even go on to point out the injustice done once the first videotapes of the brothers were released and internet witch hunts began, vigilantes naming innocents as the causer of the crime.
I don’t know how much more to say – you know the story, although not as well as you will after reading the book. It’s as fair and balanced as Fox News claims to be. It’s an incredibly hard read, mainly to stomach the whole story and all its details. I guess my best advice is to read it slowly, absorb as much as you can, and just pray for healing for the city.
April 25, 2014
Written by two Boston Globe reporters, this book uses the stories of five people to recount the terrible events of April 15, 2013, the day horror came to what was traditionally a joyous day in Boston: two young women who came to the city to watch the race, one to lose her life and the other her leg; a young trauma surgeon who completes the marathon, heads home, only to find himself back in Boston at Mass General, desperately trying to save the gravely injured; the race organizer, a 55 year old man who has been heading up the marathon for over 25 years, and a young, female police officer, a woman who has just recently made some drastic changes in her life to get herself back on track. Like an action novel, we learn of the immediate aftermath of the bombing, the stories of countless acts of heroism, as spectators, first responders, total strangers, fight against all odds to save lives. We learn of the massive hunt for the people responsible for the bombing, that tragic Thursday night when a young security guard is viciously gunned down, a young man is kidnapped and driven around for over an hour by the ruthless brothers and the chaotic shootout that results in the near death of a police officer. And then, of course, we follow the events of Friday evening when the surviving brother is captured in a Watertown backyard.
There are lots of heroes in this story, and lots of very sad stories. The politicians involved - the governor, the mayor of Boston, the local officials, behave in exemplary fashion, showing kindness when needed and leadership when called for.
The story of the bombers, the two Tsarnaev brothers, is fairly sketchy, and one has to assume until the trial of the younger brother is over, information regarding them and their motives is being closely guarded.
It is difficult to comprehend how anyone can survive the loss of a loved one or of a limb, or in some cases, two limbs, and go on to live a meaningful life. But many of the victims appear to be doing just that. I am grateful to the authors for bringing their stories to me.
A riveting, fascinating read.
There are lots of heroes in this story, and lots of very sad stories. The politicians involved - the governor, the mayor of Boston, the local officials, behave in exemplary fashion, showing kindness when needed and leadership when called for.
The story of the bombers, the two Tsarnaev brothers, is fairly sketchy, and one has to assume until the trial of the younger brother is over, information regarding them and their motives is being closely guarded.
It is difficult to comprehend how anyone can survive the loss of a loved one or of a limb, or in some cases, two limbs, and go on to live a meaningful life. But many of the victims appear to be doing just that. I am grateful to the authors for bringing their stories to me.
A riveting, fascinating read.
April 25, 2014
While it was mostly a re-tread of the Boston Globe's coverage of the 2013 Marathon bombing, it is a re-tread of Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of said bombing, with speculation removed. It does tend toward the melodramatic, but it makes for a quick read and gives the reader a good idea as to what it was like during the week of April in 2013 when everything went to hell.
April 8, 2014
A difficult read as it brings back tough memories... But well -written.
December 24, 2017
I read this book because I really loved the movie PATRIOTS DAY with Mark Wahlberg. The book describes the background to the Boston Marathon in fascinating detail, and also provides a lot of details about the Tsarnaev brothers and their family history. It's a good book but there's no real central character and it's distracting reading about so many different people all at once. Still I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013.
January 31, 2023
Expertly researched and written a reader-friendly, engaging matter, this was a quick read of a difficult subject. The authors, journalists for The Boston Globe (hence the readability), set up the story by introducing some of the victims early - as well as the criminals. This book not only draws readers closer to the victims, but it probes the lives of the two bombers. The book also looks at how the events affected first responders, doctors, and race organizers. It expertly shows how the Boston Marathon is more than just a foot race, and the tragic events on that April morning became more than just a terrorist event, but a symbol for the strength of a city.
The book is not perfect, and there are a few rather large holes. The largest is the tale of Lingzi Lu, a Chinese student living in Boston for university that was one of the few fatalities at the bombing. Little is told about Lu, and her death feels almost like an afterthought in this book. With so much emphasis on more trivial matters, like Heather Abbott's shopping, there is a real question why Lu's death was so overlooked. Internet searches show plenty about the young woman, including news articles about how her parents didn't want her to be forgotten. But forgotten is what the authors did here.
The book also embellished a few things here and there, particularly with regard to the police. I venture to guess not everyone in Watertown was amenable to very questionable warrantless searches of their homes, searches that were not even useful, considering Dzhokar Tsarnaev was lost within their search lines. Also, law enforcement botched the events to an unprecedented level with a disturbing lack of jurisdiction or organization that led to actual injury of their own in friendly fire. The book wants the cops to be nothing less than heroic, but it's actually a miracle there wasn't more of a mess - and casualties - in Watertown. (It was also wild to read this on a personal level because my husband grew up in Watertown, and I can't imagine anything like this happening there.)
But despite these limitations, the book was easy to read and did a good job invoking emotion.
The book is not perfect, and there are a few rather large holes. The largest is the tale of Lingzi Lu, a Chinese student living in Boston for university that was one of the few fatalities at the bombing. Little is told about Lu, and her death feels almost like an afterthought in this book. With so much emphasis on more trivial matters, like Heather Abbott's shopping, there is a real question why Lu's death was so overlooked. Internet searches show plenty about the young woman, including news articles about how her parents didn't want her to be forgotten. But forgotten is what the authors did here.
The book also embellished a few things here and there, particularly with regard to the police. I venture to guess not everyone in Watertown was amenable to very questionable warrantless searches of their homes, searches that were not even useful, considering Dzhokar Tsarnaev was lost within their search lines. Also, law enforcement botched the events to an unprecedented level with a disturbing lack of jurisdiction or organization that led to actual injury of their own in friendly fire. The book wants the cops to be nothing less than heroic, but it's actually a miracle there wasn't more of a mess - and casualties - in Watertown. (It was also wild to read this on a personal level because my husband grew up in Watertown, and I can't imagine anything like this happening there.)
But despite these limitations, the book was easy to read and did a good job invoking emotion.
May 18, 2020
I gave this book ⭐️ due to 4 f-words and the graphic nature of the book.
I enjoyed reading the different perspectives, including first responders, victims, the race coordinator, and the ones responsible for this tragic event.
I enjoyed reading the different perspectives, including first responders, victims, the race coordinator, and the ones responsible for this tragic event.
December 3, 2023
This was a very good book, telling the story of the bombings from many different people's perspectives.
January 25, 2017
Generally, I prefer The Boston Globe's reporting over The Boston Herald's, as the Globe's more measured and formal approach to stories is more my style. Having already read "Boston Strong," the book on the Boston Marathon bombing by Herald reporters Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, I figured I'd pick up "Long Mile Home" by Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell too. I didn't like "Long Mile Home" as much -- as the book seemed really clinical and didn't capture the emotional horror of the bombing and its aftermath as well as "Boston Strong."
To be sure, "Long Mile Home" is a good piece of journalism in that it lays out the facts of that horrible day. It's well sourced and tells the stories it does with the Globe's usual softer style. The book just didn't have as much emotional impact as "Boston Strong."
To be sure, "Long Mile Home" is a good piece of journalism in that it lays out the facts of that horrible day. It's well sourced and tells the stories it does with the Globe's usual softer style. The book just didn't have as much emotional impact as "Boston Strong."
May 11, 2014
There have been many books written about important events in our history, and more often than not, when I read books like that, I find myself getting bored, even though I am fascinated by that event.
This was not that type of book. Perhaps because it was written so soon after this tragic event, I felt extremely drawn in by this book. It actually became the first book in years that I stayed up late to finish.
The writing is very easy to read. The only complaint is the book just suddenly ends, but that is understandable because the book was written and published even before the one year anniversary. In a few years from now, I think this book could easily be updated at the end.
Definitely worth reading.
This was not that type of book. Perhaps because it was written so soon after this tragic event, I felt extremely drawn in by this book. It actually became the first book in years that I stayed up late to finish.
The writing is very easy to read. The only complaint is the book just suddenly ends, but that is understandable because the book was written and published even before the one year anniversary. In a few years from now, I think this book could easily be updated at the end.
Definitely worth reading.
April 20, 2014
I loved this book, would give it more stars, would turn it up to 11 stars! A fabulous job of in-depth reporting. I had watched the events unfold on television last April, but this book added so much detail. The focus was on five people who experienced the marathon bombing in different ways, we really got to know them. There were so many stories of people who showed strength and kindness to strangers, that the book was inspiring rather than depressing, in spite of the horrific evil that the two brothers perpetrated. I once lived in Cambridge, Mass, where the evil brothers lived, so the book meant a lot to me.
Susan R.
Susan R.
April 27, 2014
This book gave me chills. Amazing and poignant accounts of first responders, people caught up in the Boston bombings, and the manhunt that followed. I ran Boston the year before, and vividly recall the crowds of people lining Boylston Street on that last stretch to the finish line. How quickly a normal day can descend into chaos and horror. Chilling.
Read
December 21, 2014I liked this book. It was not an easy read, particularly as a former marathoner myself and the fact the these two brothers were from my beloved Cambridge; There is little speculation in this book and it helped me look at this event with more equanimity. If you are still trying to explain and digest this event, like I am, read this book.
April 26, 2014
Discusses many aspects of the Boston Marathon bombing: victims, those injured, the perpetrators, first responders, surgeons, family members, etc. For me it was a page-turner, and I found myself getting emotional at numerous points.
May 20, 2014
Great, great, great book about a very tragic and traumatic event in our recent history. This book was accurate, thoughtful, and very readable. It's a very comprehensive, informative account of the Boston Marathon bombing.
May 25, 2014
This is the ONLY book that everyone should read about the Boston Marathon bombing. Very good!!! I really enjoyed the focus on five people within the storyline. Got this book from the library in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
April 5, 2015
I read this as a companion to Hal Higdon's 4:09:43 Boston Through the Eyes of the Runners. This was a great recap of all the events leading up to and following the Boston Marathon bombings. The authors did a great job presenting the facts.
April 18, 2014
There was quite a bit I didn't know about the boston marathon bombings even though I followed the story in the news.
April 20, 2014
This account of the Boston Marathon provides a look through various perspectives. It is detail but not dense, emotional but not sensationalistic, and realistic about the struggles of the survivors.
April 29, 2014
Riveting. If you want to read about ordinary people, when faced with the unthinkable, that step up in the face of danger, this is the book for it.
February 10, 2015
This was a well done book on the Boston Marathon bombing through the eyes of a few of the victims affected by the bombing.
March 6, 2018
After recently watching a rental copy of the 2016 motion picture “Patriots Day,” this reviewer was simply compelled to look for a book that covered the same event, the April 15, 2013 terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell’s 2014 printed treatment of “Boston under attack, the city’s courageous recovery, and the epic hunt for justice” seemed to be the perfect resource. Helman and Russell’s published documentary, “Long Mile Home,” did not disappoint.
How does “Long Mile Home” differ from “Patriots Day?” This reviewer noted at least three major differences.
The screenplay version by writer and director Peter Berg made Mark Wahlberg’s on-screen character, Tommy Saunders the central figure in this real-life drama. Saunders does not appear anywhere within the printed pages of Helman and Russell’s version of the events. That’s because Berg and his fellow screen writers, Matt Cook and Joshua Zetumer created the purely fictional character Sgt. Saunders, to serve as a composite of three Boston police officers who worked the Boston Marathon and aided in the manhunt that followed.
The second major difference? Saunders’ on-screen use of the F-bomb. Nearly every other word in actor Wahlberg’s dialogue, throughout the entire film, includes that four letter-word beginning with “F.” Not only Wahlberg but it seemed most of the other major characters, particularly those playing first responders, could not utter one sentence without including at least one F-bomb. You will find no such language in the Helman and Russell book. Leaving out the gutter-speak would’ve made Berg’s wide-screen version of the Boston attack watchable.
A third difference? There is no Sergeant Saunders by any name in “Long Mile Home” who is apparently running the show. In watching Berg’s film treatment, this reviewer, at least, got the impression that Wahlberg’s composite character outranked Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, FBI agent Rick DesLauriers and all the other law enforcement officials charged with bringing the pressure cooker bombers to justice. Wahlberg as Saunders seemed to be everywhere calling the shots. In “Long Mile Home,” you could get the impression nobody was in charge.
As authors Helman and Russell point out, about 23-thousand competitors entered to compete in the 117th running of Boston’s iconic event in 2013. The two bombs, detonated mid-race by the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, prevented 5,752 runners from crossing the finish line. Far worse were the victims, Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lingzi Lu, whose fatal injuries kept them from finishing their lives. Not to mention the 275 persons treated for their injuries at Boston hospitals. Many sustained forever life-altering injuries, especially for those sixteen who lost a limb.
“Long Mile Home” left this reviewer with one major take away. Every time America is attacked by an act of terrorism, whether it’s skyscrapers in New York, iconic military headquarters in Washington, D.C., school campuses in Connecticut, Colorado, California, Florida, military bases or churches in Texas, the number one question asked by the main stream media is always “could this have been prevented?”
In Boston’s case, as Helman and Russell suggest, the oldest Tsarnaev brother, Tamerlan “had set off alarms years before. There were troubling intimations about his intentions.” However, the authors conclude, “The lack of knowledge of any specific intentions meant they failed to attract more than a piecemeal response from law enforcement.” As late as March of 2011, more than two years before the Tsarnaev brothers carried out their bomb attack, Russia’s current version of the KGB warned the FBI that the older brother, while living in Boston, had “become a radical Islamist bent on joining militant groups abroad.” Helman and Russell write, “The FBI reported its inconclusive findings back to the Russians in August of 2011.” Apparently, the old mantra that American law enforcement always drags out after every terrorist attack, “if you see something, say something,” didn’t even work for the new KGB! We’re recently seen how well that policy worked for the seventeen who lost their lives on Valentine’s Day 2018, in that mass shooting in Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Tragically, perhaps a more realistic public policy should be, “see something---say something---expect nothing.”
How does “Long Mile Home” differ from “Patriots Day?” This reviewer noted at least three major differences.
The screenplay version by writer and director Peter Berg made Mark Wahlberg’s on-screen character, Tommy Saunders the central figure in this real-life drama. Saunders does not appear anywhere within the printed pages of Helman and Russell’s version of the events. That’s because Berg and his fellow screen writers, Matt Cook and Joshua Zetumer created the purely fictional character Sgt. Saunders, to serve as a composite of three Boston police officers who worked the Boston Marathon and aided in the manhunt that followed.
The second major difference? Saunders’ on-screen use of the F-bomb. Nearly every other word in actor Wahlberg’s dialogue, throughout the entire film, includes that four letter-word beginning with “F.” Not only Wahlberg but it seemed most of the other major characters, particularly those playing first responders, could not utter one sentence without including at least one F-bomb. You will find no such language in the Helman and Russell book. Leaving out the gutter-speak would’ve made Berg’s wide-screen version of the Boston attack watchable.
A third difference? There is no Sergeant Saunders by any name in “Long Mile Home” who is apparently running the show. In watching Berg’s film treatment, this reviewer, at least, got the impression that Wahlberg’s composite character outranked Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, FBI agent Rick DesLauriers and all the other law enforcement officials charged with bringing the pressure cooker bombers to justice. Wahlberg as Saunders seemed to be everywhere calling the shots. In “Long Mile Home,” you could get the impression nobody was in charge.
As authors Helman and Russell point out, about 23-thousand competitors entered to compete in the 117th running of Boston’s iconic event in 2013. The two bombs, detonated mid-race by the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, prevented 5,752 runners from crossing the finish line. Far worse were the victims, Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lingzi Lu, whose fatal injuries kept them from finishing their lives. Not to mention the 275 persons treated for their injuries at Boston hospitals. Many sustained forever life-altering injuries, especially for those sixteen who lost a limb.
“Long Mile Home” left this reviewer with one major take away. Every time America is attacked by an act of terrorism, whether it’s skyscrapers in New York, iconic military headquarters in Washington, D.C., school campuses in Connecticut, Colorado, California, Florida, military bases or churches in Texas, the number one question asked by the main stream media is always “could this have been prevented?”
In Boston’s case, as Helman and Russell suggest, the oldest Tsarnaev brother, Tamerlan “had set off alarms years before. There were troubling intimations about his intentions.” However, the authors conclude, “The lack of knowledge of any specific intentions meant they failed to attract more than a piecemeal response from law enforcement.” As late as March of 2011, more than two years before the Tsarnaev brothers carried out their bomb attack, Russia’s current version of the KGB warned the FBI that the older brother, while living in Boston, had “become a radical Islamist bent on joining militant groups abroad.” Helman and Russell write, “The FBI reported its inconclusive findings back to the Russians in August of 2011.” Apparently, the old mantra that American law enforcement always drags out after every terrorist attack, “if you see something, say something,” didn’t even work for the new KGB! We’re recently seen how well that policy worked for the seventeen who lost their lives on Valentine’s Day 2018, in that mass shooting in Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Tragically, perhaps a more realistic public policy should be, “see something---say something---expect nothing.”
November 28, 2018
Over the past decade, terrorism has crawled into the daily lives of average Americans. Everyday there is a new headline, displaying the countries fall to gun violence and terrorist attacks. In Long Mile Home, Scott Helman and Jenna Russell chronologically describe the events that took place in order to adequately describe the attacks. Although the novel lacked an overlying message relating to the story, the work shared my values of understanding and compassion.
In Long Mile Home, Helman and Russell describe the bombings that took place at the 2013 Boston Marathon in chronological order, followed by the details of their arrest after the fact. The authors’ use of chronology in the work adds to their credibility and makes the novel easier for the audience to comprehend. This specific rhetorical strategy was successful in logically conveying the events of the Boston terror attacks making the audience able to trust the authors.
One major criticism of the novel is the lack of an overall stance or message on a specific topic related to the bombings. Helman and Russell recount the events of April 15, 2013 in a format similar to a fictional story, rather than how the events changed or reflected a current global issue. The authors’ choice to describe the attack through the third person fictionalizes the event, and therefore the novel resembles a scary bedtime story, rather than a news article. Although I appreciate the inclusion of background information about the victims, Helman and Russell did not take on a specific stance in the novel, which would have made the book more interesting and controversial.
Long Mile Home agrees with my values regarding the importance understanding all perspectives of a story. Helman and Russell include detailed descriptions of the life of the attackers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The authors detail the brothers’ radical past, one filled with disappointment and rage. Adding the background of the attackers, rather than just statistics from the attacks, humanises the brothers in order to help the audience understand all perspectives. The authors convey a message of compassion through their understanding approach to the deadly events, while informing their readers of differing perspectives.
Scott Helman and Jenna Russell were overall successful in compassionately and professionally describing the events of the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. Their use of logical, specific depictions and chronological narration further supplemented the work, making the novel both interesting to read and an informative resource for the audience.
In Long Mile Home, Helman and Russell describe the bombings that took place at the 2013 Boston Marathon in chronological order, followed by the details of their arrest after the fact. The authors’ use of chronology in the work adds to their credibility and makes the novel easier for the audience to comprehend. This specific rhetorical strategy was successful in logically conveying the events of the Boston terror attacks making the audience able to trust the authors.
One major criticism of the novel is the lack of an overall stance or message on a specific topic related to the bombings. Helman and Russell recount the events of April 15, 2013 in a format similar to a fictional story, rather than how the events changed or reflected a current global issue. The authors’ choice to describe the attack through the third person fictionalizes the event, and therefore the novel resembles a scary bedtime story, rather than a news article. Although I appreciate the inclusion of background information about the victims, Helman and Russell did not take on a specific stance in the novel, which would have made the book more interesting and controversial.
Long Mile Home agrees with my values regarding the importance understanding all perspectives of a story. Helman and Russell include detailed descriptions of the life of the attackers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The authors detail the brothers’ radical past, one filled with disappointment and rage. Adding the background of the attackers, rather than just statistics from the attacks, humanises the brothers in order to help the audience understand all perspectives. The authors convey a message of compassion through their understanding approach to the deadly events, while informing their readers of differing perspectives.
Scott Helman and Jenna Russell were overall successful in compassionately and professionally describing the events of the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. Their use of logical, specific depictions and chronological narration further supplemented the work, making the novel both interesting to read and an informative resource for the audience.
June 3, 2023
2023: What a time to be reading this book
So I picked this book up to read right around the tenth anniversary of the Marathon bombings. I also happen to be now working at the Boston Public Library, which is directly on top of the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon, and the site of the terrorist attack ten years ago. It's been a very surreal experience to be listening to my coworkers reminisce about being present for the attack when I was not near the Finish Line at all.
However, I was in Boston ten years ago, just five miles away from the Finish Line, studying at Boston College. I had a lot of friends running in the Marathon that day, and it was a crazy time to be in Boston. It was really crazy reading this book, because it made me feel like I was rereading it. The kicker is I haven't read this story before; I lived it.
Basically, this is the book version of the new Boston Marathon bombing documentary they released on Netflix this year. I would absolutely recommend the book, but I don't think there's much in it that they don't already cover in the documentary. I do think this would be a good way to learn about the events without having to watch the footage of what happened that day. That being said, I did use up 13 tissues in the course of reading the book.
One thing that really stuck out to me was how novel the idea of "shutting down a city" was at the time. Now, post-Covid, of course it feels like a tool that a city always had at its disposal, as opposed to the drastic measure it was at the time. The book refers to it as "tyrannical", which is almost funny at this point. But in 2013, a lockdown of Boston College felt quite extreme.
Shoutout to the best quote about event planning from Dave McGillivray: “It isn’t about putting out fires. It’s about preventing them.”
So I picked this book up to read right around the tenth anniversary of the Marathon bombings. I also happen to be now working at the Boston Public Library, which is directly on top of the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon, and the site of the terrorist attack ten years ago. It's been a very surreal experience to be listening to my coworkers reminisce about being present for the attack when I was not near the Finish Line at all.
However, I was in Boston ten years ago, just five miles away from the Finish Line, studying at Boston College. I had a lot of friends running in the Marathon that day, and it was a crazy time to be in Boston. It was really crazy reading this book, because it made me feel like I was rereading it. The kicker is I haven't read this story before; I lived it.
Basically, this is the book version of the new Boston Marathon bombing documentary they released on Netflix this year. I would absolutely recommend the book, but I don't think there's much in it that they don't already cover in the documentary. I do think this would be a good way to learn about the events without having to watch the footage of what happened that day. That being said, I did use up 13 tissues in the course of reading the book.
One thing that really stuck out to me was how novel the idea of "shutting down a city" was at the time. Now, post-Covid, of course it feels like a tool that a city always had at its disposal, as opposed to the drastic measure it was at the time. The book refers to it as "tyrannical", which is almost funny at this point. But in 2013, a lockdown of Boston College felt quite extreme.
Shoutout to the best quote about event planning from Dave McGillivray: “It isn’t about putting out fires. It’s about preventing them.”
July 5, 2024
Overall I'd say this is an in-depth account of an . . . interesting(?) historical event. I of course remember when this happened, but I wasn't any kind of related to Boston or running at the time, so I only knew the big news details.
The prose is at times really good, at other times style is centered to the detriment of clarity. It took me a long time to get through this, mostly because the first half was, if I'm being honest, hard to follow.
The structure is clearly intended to be almost minute-by-minute, in that the narrative jumps back and forth between people as the day progresses to the actual bombing and then through the manhunt and aftermath. But there are just so many different people, some of whom are only known through second-hand accounts, and the structure of the writing does not make it clear when perspective changes happen. Often the style choice was, for some reason, to switch people from one paragraph to the next and only identify 'who' we were now following at the mid-point in that paragraph. It was frustrating, and I found myself having to flip back and refresh on who's who pretty frequently.
I think a quick-reference guide at the beginning or end could have helped, but mostly this was a structural problem.
There's also a careful tone being struck here, which is fair. But I had no idea before going through this that the manhunt conducted was done so incredibly poorly. The authors try very hard not to actually say this, but it's there between the lines as they explain the who/what/where.
The prose is at times really good, at other times style is centered to the detriment of clarity. It took me a long time to get through this, mostly because the first half was, if I'm being honest, hard to follow.
The structure is clearly intended to be almost minute-by-minute, in that the narrative jumps back and forth between people as the day progresses to the actual bombing and then through the manhunt and aftermath. But there are just so many different people, some of whom are only known through second-hand accounts, and the structure of the writing does not make it clear when perspective changes happen. Often the style choice was, for some reason, to switch people from one paragraph to the next and only identify 'who' we were now following at the mid-point in that paragraph. It was frustrating, and I found myself having to flip back and refresh on who's who pretty frequently.
I think a quick-reference guide at the beginning or end could have helped, but mostly this was a structural problem.
There's also a careful tone being struck here, which is fair. But I had no idea before going through this that the manhunt conducted was done so incredibly poorly. The authors try very hard not to actually say this, but it's there between the lines as they explain the who/what/where.
June 7, 2017
Long Mile Home is an authoritative and effective account of the events before, during, and after the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. Boston Globe employees Helman and Russell offer smart, detailed reporting and wisely choose to focus the journalistic narrative on a handful of key figures with different perspectives on the events of that day and its aftermath: an emergency room doctor, a cop who was stationed at the finish line, one of the victims who lost her life, another victim who lost a limb, the man who has organized the marathon for the last several decades. My main quibble: the "after" section of the book would be more impactful if it had been written with more distance from the events in question; I'm more curious to know how these individuals are doing a couple years after the fact vs. a few months later. But I'm sure that public interest demanded an account be published sooner rather than later, so I can't fault the authors too much for that. All in all, a meticulous, moving portrait of a city I love and its resilience in the face of tragedy.
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