Ireland, 1971. John Egan is a misfit, 'a twelve year old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant who insists on the ridiculous truth'. With an obsession for the Guinness Book of Records and faith in his ability to detect when adults are lying, John remains hopeful despite the unfortunate cards life deals him. During one year in John's life, from his voice breaking, through the breaking-up of his home life, to the near collapse of his sanity, we witness the gradual unsticking of John's mind, and the trouble that creates for him and his family.
Let the great world spin by Colum McCann
Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for
2011. Shortlisted for both the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards Hughes &
Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2010 and for the Bord Gais Irish Book
Awards Book of the Decade.
New York, August 1974. A man is walking the sky. The city
stands still in awe. Between the newly built Twin Towers the man is striding,
twirling and showboating his way through the air. One hundred and ten stories
below him, the lives of eight strangers spin towards each other. Corrigan, a
radical, passionate Irish monk working in the Bronx with a clutch of
prostitutes; Claire, a delicate Upper East Side housewife reeling from the
death of her son in Vietnam; her husband Solomon, a cynical judge turning over
petty criminals in a downtown court; Lara, a young artist struggling with a
spiralling drug addiction and a doomed marriage; Fernando, a thirteen-year-old
photographer chasing underground graffiti; Gloria, solid and proud despite
decades of hardship; Tillie, a courageous hooker who used to dream of a better
life; and Jazzlyn, her beautiful, reckless daughter raised on promises that
reach beyond the high rises of New York.
Set against a time of sweeping political and social change,
from the backlash to the Vietnam War and the lingering sceptre of the oil
crisis to the beginnings of the Internet - a time that hauntingly mirrors the
present time - these disparate lives will collide in the shadow of one reckless
and beautiful act, and be transformed for ever.
Weaving together themes of love, loss, belonging, duty and
human striving, Let the Great World Spin celebrates the effervescent spirit of
an age and the small beauties of everyday life. At once intimate and
magnificent, elegant and astonishing, it is a lyrical masterpiece from a
storyteller who continues to use the wide world as his canvas.
No comments:
Post a Comment