Author(s): Robin Gaby Fisher

True Crime

It was a tale of loss and recovery, of courage and sorrow, of horror and inspiration. Tania Head's astonishing account of her experience on September 11, 2001 - from crawling through the carnage and chaos to escaping the seventy-eighth-floor sky lobby of the burning south tower to losing her fiance in the collapsed north tower - transformed her into one of the great victims and heroes of that tragic day. Tania told her story to schools, politicians, newspapers and to local support groups and women's organisations, eventually becoming a symbol of survival. Tania selflessly took on the responsibility of giving a voice and a direction to the burgeoning World Trade Center Survivors' Network, helping save the 'Survivor Stairway' and leading tours at Ground Zero, including taking then-governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, and former mayor Giuliani on the inaugural tour of the WTC site. She even used her own assets to fund charitable events to help survivors heal. Tania Head represented the most intense hope to have broken into their lives since that crystal clear September morning in 2001. If Tania could transcend the ruin that the terrorist attack had brought upon her, how could they not step out of their own torment? But there was a problem that would emerge, much later, with Tania's story. None of it was true. Told with the unique insider perspective and authority of Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr., a filmmaker shooting a documentary on the efforts of the Survivors' Network, and previously one of Tania's closest friends, The Woman Who Wasn't There is the story of one of the most audacious and bewildering quests for acclaim in recent memory - one that poses fascinating questions about the essence of morality and the human need for connection at any cost.