Novelist trapped in post-9/11 tale

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

By Jonathan Safran Foer

Houghton Mifflin. $24.95.

On Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, itturned out that there was one novelist among the confused Americanmilitary that day: James Jones, who used the experience to produceFrom Here to Eternity 10 years later.

On Sept. 11, 2001, when Mohammed Atta and his fellow terroristssmashed into the World Trade Center, the situation was much different-- there are perhaps more novelists per square mile in New York Citythan anywhere else in the world. So it is no surprise that it hastaken merely four years for Jonathan Safran Foer's literaryaccounting of the …