Colum McCann
publisher
Random House
format
Hardcover
pages
368
Frank Delaney
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Margot Livesey
American Dervish
Ayad Akhtar
Time and Again
Jack Finney
After the rigors of Zoli (2007), his historical tale of Romani life, best-selling literary novelist McCann allows himself more artistic freedom in his shimmering, shattering fifth novel. It begins on August 7, 1974, when New Yorkers are stopped in their tracks by the sight of a man walking between the towers of the World Trade Center. Yes, it’s Philippe Petit, the subject of the Academy Award–winning documentary Man on Wire and one of McCann’s many intense and valiant characters. The cast also includes two Irish brothers: Corrigan, a radical monk, and Ciaran, who follows him to the blasted Bronx, where he encounters resilient prostitute Tillie and her spirited daughter Jazzlyn. Gloria lives in the same housing project, and she befriends Claire of Park Avenue as they mourn the deaths of their sons in Vietnam. McCann’s hallucinatory descriptions of a great city tattooed and besmirched with graffiti, blood, and drugs in the midst of a financial freefall are eerie in their edgy beauty, chilling reminders of how quickly civilization unravels. Here, too, are portals onto war, the justice system, and the dawning of the cyber age. In McCann’s wise and elegiac novel of origins and consequences, each of his finely drawn, unexpectedly connected characters balances above an abyss, evincing great courage with every step. --Donna Seaman
About the AuthorColum McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and five novels, including "This Side of Brightness,""Dancer" and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers. His newest novel is “Let the Great World Spin.” His fiction has been published in 30 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Paris Review, Bomb and other places. He has written for numerous publications including The Irish Times, Die Zeit, La Republicca, Paris Match, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent.
In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Hennessy Award for Irish Literature, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award.
His short film "Everything in this Country Must," directed by Gary McKendry, was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in 2005.
In May 2009 Colum was inducted into Aosdana, the equivalent of the Irish Academy, one of Ireland’s highest literary honours.
In fall 2009, Colum will be awarded a French Legion d’honneur by the French government, making him one of a exclusive number of foreign artists recognised in France for their literary contributions: other recipients have included Paul Auster, Salman Rushdie and Julian Barnes.
In September 2009 Colum will be awarded the Deauville Festival of Cinema Literary Prize in Deauxville, France.
Colum was born in Dublin in 1965 and began his career as a journalist in The Irish Press. In the early 1980's he took a bicycle across North America and then worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas. After a year and a half in Japan, he and his wife Allison moved to New York where they currently live with their three children, Isabella, John Michael and Christian.
Colum teaches in Hunter College in New York, in the Creative Writing program, with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Nathan Englander.
Beyond the book
For bios, video, interviews, and reviews, check out McCann's site here.