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bethpeninger 's review for:
Let the Great World Spin
by Colum McCann
This title has been on my radar, if not my TBR, for a while. And it keeps getting brought up on the podcast I listen to so when my sister-in-love was cleaning off her shelves and getting rid of books and this title was up for grabs, I grabbed.
I've not read McCann before but what I do know of him is he writes great, sweeping, rich stories. If evidence is needed all one has to do is read this title.
This is an ambitious story and how McCann pulled it together is beyond my imagination or comprehension. He took a couple of different events and crafted a story from them to help him process the events of 9/11. What's intriguing about this premise is 9/11 is never mentioned and not a character in this book. The story takes place, with the exception of the first and last chapter, in August 1974 and centers on one specific day in that month. August 7, the day a man walked on a tightrope between the twin towers, one of which was still under construction.
While this story features a cast of about a dozen characters there are two that rise above the rest and are the common thread throughout the book. Ciaran and John Corrigan. Out of all the voices in the story Ciaran's is the one we hear the most of, even when he doesn't appear in the story at certain moments. His brother, John, or Corrigan as everyone including Ciaran calls him, is secondary in voice but plays a very important part of the story.
What you have at first is a bunch of stories about a bunch of different people and you wonder how they could possibly be pulled together as the book jacket promises. And where does the tightrope walker figure in - he does right? Keep reading because it becomes clear and the dots begin to connect and McCann does it so seamlessly and well that there's a delight when he allows the story to connect and you are tracking with it. He doesn't give away too much, he gives the reader just enough to satisfy the curiosity and know that there is more to come.
The conclusion is that McCann spins a story that shows just how small our world is and how we are all connected in ways we don't even realize and how those connections influence our futures.
This review is unsatisfactory but to say all I want to would spoil the reading experience for anyone who wants to give this title a go. This story will not be for everyone, I wasn't sure it would be for me, but it will be for some and it will move some in ways they don't expect. It did me.
I've not read McCann before but what I do know of him is he writes great, sweeping, rich stories. If evidence is needed all one has to do is read this title.
This is an ambitious story and how McCann pulled it together is beyond my imagination or comprehension. He took a couple of different events and crafted a story from them to help him process the events of 9/11. What's intriguing about this premise is 9/11 is never mentioned and not a character in this book. The story takes place, with the exception of the first and last chapter, in August 1974 and centers on one specific day in that month. August 7, the day a man walked on a tightrope between the twin towers, one of which was still under construction.
While this story features a cast of about a dozen characters there are two that rise above the rest and are the common thread throughout the book. Ciaran and John Corrigan. Out of all the voices in the story Ciaran's is the one we hear the most of, even when he doesn't appear in the story at certain moments. His brother, John, or Corrigan as everyone including Ciaran calls him, is secondary in voice but plays a very important part of the story.
What you have at first is a bunch of stories about a bunch of different people and you wonder how they could possibly be pulled together as the book jacket promises. And where does the tightrope walker figure in - he does right? Keep reading because it becomes clear and the dots begin to connect and McCann does it so seamlessly and well that there's a delight when he allows the story to connect and you are tracking with it. He doesn't give away too much, he gives the reader just enough to satisfy the curiosity and know that there is more to come.
The conclusion is that McCann spins a story that shows just how small our world is and how we are all connected in ways we don't even realize and how those connections influence our futures.
This review is unsatisfactory but to say all I want to would spoil the reading experience for anyone who wants to give this title a go. This story will not be for everyone, I wasn't sure it would be for me, but it will be for some and it will move some in ways they don't expect. It did me.