After enough time it fades and you’re grateful. Not that it’s ever completely gone… We’ll always be connected by that winter. Anyone who tells you different is lying.
-- Miri (Thirty-Five Years Later paragraph 5)

Importance: In the first section of the novel, Miri (then unidentified) is reflecting on the plane crashes of the winter of 1951-52 as she heads to New Jersey for a memorial ceremony for the dead. Though the memories of that time are no longer immediate, they still linger. Miri reveals that the crashes had a greater impact that merely a news story or a tragic event – but affected the people of the town of Elizabeth in unimaginable ways.

It’s the second-worst air disaster in this country, the worst disaster since…
-- Henry (Part 1, Chapter 2 paragraph 149)

Importance: Not only does the first crash stun the residents of Elizabeth, but the wreck itself is so bad that Henry – a newspaper reporter – has difficult recalling a similar or...