I’ve met Mr. Feinberg a few times, casually and briefly, and although my favorable impression of him didn’t influence those I formed of his book while reading it, that impression did remove the sting of cynicism I’d almost certainly have brought to reading a stranger’s account of a program that I thought was bad law.

In the days following the 9/11 murders, congress wrote and President Bush signed into law the victim compensation fund, giving monetary awards to anyone who was killed or injured during the atrocity. The fund was created to protect the US economy by encouraging a return to business as usual and discouraging litigation against industry. There had been nothing like it in US law before. Congress set no limit on the awards, the special master had sole responsible in administering the fund, and the amounts were largely unregulated. Mr. Feinberg, former counsel to Ted Kennedy in his role on the Senate Judiciary committee, interviewed with republican attorney general John Ashcroft who gave him the job.

I’ll let the reader discover for himself the details given of the administration of the fund because that’s not the heart of the book, its soul, although historians and legal professionals are repaid for reading it. The soul of the book is part of Mr. Feinberg’s own. ‘What’s a Life Worth?’ refers both to Mr. Feinberg’s account of his prosecution of the role of special master determining the dollar amount awarded for each death or injury and his unfavorable opinion of the law’s precedent, and the reflection his work caused him to make on the nature of life in America and a person’s role in it. It’s a part of the public record and a keen legal brief, as well as a discourse on the unique way of life Americans enjoy and reminder that each of us is part of the life of others and we have a role to play in public and private. Sitting here, typing this out, I suddenly realized that this is the most patriotic book I’ve read in years.

‘What’s a Life Worth’? will be read and referred to, with admiration, long after the story of 9/11 stops being part of living memory and the faces of the murderers forgotten or placed as bogeys in text books along with John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald. I’ll vouch for the veracity of the man who wrote it and the genius for simplicity he brought to his role of special master and his philosophy, that work and life he shares with us here. ( )