In After we go inside the late night audiences that lobbyists get with congressional leaders like Tom DeLay. We're in the White House sub-basement as the mammoth Department of Homeland Security is patched together, agency by agency. And we're in a young widow's living room as she struggles to hold her family together and make sense of the various charities and government funds that may be available to her.

But beyond being a masterpiece of reporting, After is a riveting narrative of people, some well known, others not known at all, facing the defining challenge of their lives. As their paths cross in a series of surprising alliances and confrontations, Brill finds in their stories the answer to how America changed and prevailed.