Heartbreak Hell: Searching for sanity in Boston through a week of tragedy and terror

by Chris Faraone

Chris Faraone was a block and a half from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, en route to a bar called Forum on Boylston Street, when the bombs went off. The day's shift from carnival to chaos is preserved impeccably on his Twitter feed."I'd make fun of all the people going to watch the marahon [sic] in running gear, but I totally did go to see Magic Mike in my G-string," he wrote at one point. Soon after, he was sending dispatches from a war "Some relatively calm, others crying for blocks near Boston marathon finish line where loud noises were just heard," "Observer who was right near Boston Marathon finish line during explosions tells me he smelled gun powder," "FYI to my friends and fam and I'm okay, and for the next few hours will be writing and processing today's pandemonium."That last tweet could serve as an epigraph for the e-book Faraone, a former Boston Phoenix staff writer who covered everything from Occupy protests to the LA rap collective Odd Future at the bygone paper, will release Friday, April 26 called Heartbreak Searching for Sanity in Boston Through a Week of Tragedy & Terror.Faraone didn't just spend the hours following the attack writing and processing; he has never really stopped. He was interviewing people at the vigil in Boston Common the day after the bombings. Then he was speaking to a gaggle of nurses in town for a medical convention. Then, on Friday — the day Boston literally and figuratively froze with fear — he reported from what seemed to be the only open bar in the entire Biddy Early's, in the Financial District."I hate to be that guy . . . who never stops talking about how he was never late to work in 20 years at the World Trade Center, but got a flat tire on 9/11," he writes via email about the "dumb luck" that prevented him from reaching Forum ten minutes earlier. "But in this case I guess I am."By Philip Eil, The Portland PhoenixApril 24, 2013

45 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2013

About the author

Author of 99 Nights with the 99 Percent. New book from Write to Power this June.