Try free for 30 days

  • Reluctant Hero

  • A 9/11 Hero Speaks Out About What He's Learned, How He's Struggled, and What No One Should Ever Forget
  • By: Michael Benfante
  • Narrated by: Chris Ruen
  • Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook free.
1 credit/month after trial—to buy any title you like, yours to keep.
Listen all you want to a selection of thousands of Audible Originals, audiobooks and podcasts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
Reluctant Hero cover art

Reluctant Hero

By: Michael Benfante
Narrated by: Chris Ruen
Free with 30-day trial

$16.45/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $22.99

Buy Now for $22.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Editorial reviews

On September 11, 2001, author Michael Benfante’s heroic actions during the devastating terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Center catapulted him to national fame; but the grim circumstances of his publicity haunted him in the years that followed. Ten years after the fact, Benfante published Reluctant Hero, a thoughtful and deeply moving treatise on loss, grief, and the psychological damage that he and many other Americans have endured since that fateful day.

Chris Ruen’s measured performance of this memoir provides much-needed grounding for the heavy emotionality of this valuable narrative.

Publisher's Summary

After nearly 10 years of conflicted silence, a celebrated 9/11 survivor describes what it was like for him living with memories of 9/11 for the past decade.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Michael Benfante went to work, just like he had day after day, at his office on 81st floor in the World Trade Center North Tower. Moments after the first plane struck, just 12 floors above him, Benfante organized his terrified employees, getting them out of the office and moving down the stairwells. On his way down, he and another co-worker encountered a woman in a wheelchair on the 68th floor. Benfante, the woman, and Benfante's co-worker then embarked on a 96-minute odyssey of escape - the two men carrying the woman down 68 flights of stairs, out of the North Tower, and into an ambulance that rushed her to safety just minutes before the tower imploded.

A CBS video camera caught Benfante just as he got out of the building, and almost immediately, the national media came calling. Benfante sat on the couch with Oprah Winfrey, where she hailed him as a hero. Almost one year to the day after 9/11, Benfante got married, and the woman in the wheelchair sat in the front row.

That's the storybook ending. But in the aftermath of 9/11, Benfante began a journey fraught with wrenching personal challenges of critical, emotional, and psychological depth which he captures here in Reluctant Hero. Benfante shares the trappings of his public heroism, the loneliness of his private anguish, and the hope he finds for himself and for us. Because all of us - whether we were in the towers in New York City or someplace else - are 9/11 survivors.

©2011 Michael Benfante and David Hollander (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Reluctant Hero

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Shockingly boring

7 hour book that spent 1 hour focused on the actual event of 9/11 and 6 hours on not much else. Should never have been a book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not bad

Hard to critique a 9-11 book. Just didn’t feel as connected to this story as other books.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

wonderfully written

loved it. Such an incredible story. I hope Michael continues to find peace in his life after such a tragic event.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.