LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN - A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
by McCann, Colum
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- F+
- ISBN 10
- 0812973992
- ISBN 13
- 9780812973990
- Seller
-
Watkins Glen, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Colum McCann is an Irish writer whose novels include Songdogs, This Side of Brightness, Dancer, Zoli and Let the Great World Spin . His fiction has been published in 30 languages. His book, Let The Great World Spin , received the 2009 National Book Award for fiction. This expansive novel is set in New York City and begins in 1974, on the day that Philippe Petit walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers. The novel revolves around eleven diverse characters that are seemingly unrelated, but somehow all touched by the events that take place between the two towers. A young aesthetic couple, Blaine and Lara, have tried to escape a past filled with drugs and alcohol by moving to the tranquil country. Their lives intersect with those of Corrigan, who is a monk on a mission and his brother Ciaran, who struggles to make sense of both his life and his brothers, and the prostitutes they encounter, Tillie and Jazzlyn. This highly original, profoundly human novel is as wonderfully written as it is admirable.
Reviews
Early 1970s, early morning New York, people on their way to work watch a person high in the air, not obvious from the ground, but turns out he is crossing between the two Twin Towers on a tightrope. The watchers include a few young men over from Ireland, a group of black prostitutes, a high society Park Avenue type woman, and others, who interact with each other in the course of this novel. The author pays unstated tribute to James Joyce by including scenes and images comparable to some found in Joyce's book Ulysses.
A bit disappointing. Perhaps I was expecting too much after the pleasure I got from reading McCann's "Transatlantic." The two books were similar stylistically with multiple stories revolving around a single historical event. In the case of this book, the event was Phillipe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk on a wire stretched high across Manhattan's Twin Towers. Among those whose lives were being lived out in the shadow of the tightrope were two Irish brothers, one a Catholic monk, and the hookers who cared for them. Others included a group of mothers who lost their sons in the Vietnam fiasco and, of course, the walker himself. The title character--this old world--just keeps on spinning, despite the depths of grief, tragedy, love and joy that transpire as it rotates.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Seneca Valley Used Books & Paper Collectibles (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 25886
- Title
- LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN - A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
- Author
- McCann, Colum
- Format/Binding
- Softcover; 9th Printing
- Book Condition
- Used - F+
- Edition
- Random House Trade Paperback Edition
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0812973992
- ISBN 13
- 9780812973990
- Publisher
- Random House
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2009
- Keywords
- 9780812973990, Historical Fiction Irish Immigrants New York State, Grief Teenage Mothers Famly Philippt Petit, Tightrope Walking Psychological Circus
- Bookseller catalogs
- Historical Fiction;
Terms of Sale
Seneca Valley Used Books & Paper Collectibles
Prior sale applies. All books are packed very carefully. International books are insured and we are not responsible for loss or damage unless sent priority mail which includes insurance. If book is not as described it can be returned with notification within 7 days after receiving it.
About the Seller
Seneca Valley Used Books & Paper Collectibles
About Seneca Valley Used Books & Paper Collectibles
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Trade Paperback
- Used to indicate any paperback book that is larger than a mass-market paperback and is often more similar in size to a hardcover...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...