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Colum McCann

Let the Great World Spin Paperback – 3 May 2010

by Colum McCann (Author)

940 ratings

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New York, August 1974. A man is walking in the sky and the city stands still, captivated by this sight, awe and disbelief filling the streets. Philipe Petit is making his famous tightrope walk across the World Trade Centre and the lives of seven people will change forever- the Christ-like Corrigan, an Irish priest living in the Bronx with a conclave of hookers; a young woman artist in trouble with drugs and her marriage; a thirteen year old photographer obsessed with graffiti; a Park Avenue mother struggling to come to terms with the death of her son in Vietnam; her husband, a judge in a downtown court; Lillie the hooker; Gloria, her neighbour, whose life will collide with hers.
Set against a time of sweeping political and social change, from the imminent resignation of Nixon to the beginnings of the Internet, the burgeoning minimalist art movement to the lingering sceptre of the oil crisis, a single audacious event will intricately bind these apparent strangers, transforming their lives forever. With prose that is at once immediate, lyrical and dazzling, Let The Great World Spin weaves together and celebrates the intimacies - 'small beauties' - of human life whilst vividly capturing the effervescent spirit of an age. Foreshadowing the sinister beginnings of the many luxuries we now take for granted, Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin stands as a haunting evocation of human endeavour in the face of timeless cultural anxiety.

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Product details

ASIN : 1408801183
Publisher : Bloomsbury Pb; 1st edition (3 May 2010)
Language : English
Paperback : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 9781408801185
ISBN-13 : 978-1408801185
Dimensions : 12.9 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 127,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 10,371 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- 15,114 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- 53,382 in Religion & Spirituality (Books)

Customer Reviews:
940 ratings

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Review

'An astonishing balancing act by a great writer prepared to take risks. A book to treasure' Daily Mail 'A blockbuster, groundbreaking, heartbreaking, symphony of a novel ... No novelist writing of New York has climbed higher, dived deeper' Frank McCourt 'McCann has reinvented the city of New York in all its breathing, fighting, whining, joyous clamour' Peter Carey, Observer Books of the Year 'A wow of a novel - rich, humane, brilliantly written and as deep as it is wide' The Times

Book Description

Winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction, the dazzling new novel from bestselling writer Colum McCann.

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5 star		61%
4 star		21%
3 star		8%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

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One to treasure, just as the interconnections between us are

Reviewed in Australia on 14 December 2014

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Loved it. An eloquently written, intriguing tale about ordinary people leading ordinary lives and the interconnections between some of them. The setting is New York and the scenarios are linked by the tightrope walker crossing between the towers. This was a true event in the 70s. The other characters and their lives, while ficticious, are so believably brought to life by McCann's beautiful writing. As the scenarios unfold the reader begins to see the interconnections that exist even in a metropolis like New York. I didn't want this to end and I find myself wanting to reread it just to understand it a deeper level.

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Quite disjointed, characters are a bit all over the place

Reviewed in Australia on 18 August 2015

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I really don't know what to make of this book, it reads quite disjointedly, but characters keep crossing paths. Parts of it explore the dark side of humanity, others about the good to be found. It feels like it should be a great book, but I didn't really enjoy it.

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Jane S

Cleverly intertwining stories

Reviewed in Australia on 8 December 2014

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This book cleverly weaves together the stories of New Yorkers around the true story of the highrise tightrope walker who crossed between the Twin Towers in the 1970s. It was cleverly written and was a really surprisingly captivating story. Great writing.

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tabbycat

Couldn't finish it

Reviewed in Australia on 14 March 2015

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Couldn't finish it. Didn't hold my interest. Disappointing

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Craig Dayman

Five Stars

Reviewed in Australia on 20 April 2015

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Best book I've read in three years. Great characters, descriptive text and subtle touches. Recommended.

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PAB

Clever.

Reviewed in Australia on 20 March 2016

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Clever, beautifully crafted - intermingled.

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Marianne Hamilton

get this one!

Reviewed in Australia on 31 May 2014

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I really liked it - believable characters, good pace - and I'm reading another one by him which I'm enjoying even more. Fantastic writer!

2 people found this helpful

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MrMagoonz

Melancholic mastery.

Reviewed in Australia on 23 January 2014

Easily readable. Topical. Almost stream of consciousness at times. All with a tinge of sadness or melancholy. Excellent. Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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FictionFan

Moments...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2016

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One August morning in 1974, a man was spotted standing on top of one of the newly-built Twin Towers. A crowd quickly gathered, wondering if he was going to jump. Some prayed for his safety and begged him to come down, others egged him on to jump, in that ugly way crowds have. But in a moment of unforgettable magic, Philippe Petit stepped out onto an inch-thick wire, 1350 feet above the ground, and walked between the towers. For 45 minutes he held the city enthralled as he walked back and forth, sitting, even lying on the wire.

When something as momentous as 9/11 happens, how do you deal with it in fiction? To tell the story of the events themselves can feel maudlin, voyeuristic – a kind of cashing-in on tragedy. Colum McCann's book only obliquely refers to that day, but the iconic status of the Twin Towers, their presence in the book, means it's never far from the reader's mind. And it's no coincidence that the one picture McCann has chosen to illustrate the book, with the benefit of hindsight becomes terrifyingly prescient.

Instead, McCann chooses a different unique moment in the history of the Twin Towers, using it as a starting point to tell the stories of some of the people whose lives intersected while Petit walked. It's not a celebration of New York, exactly – it's too clear-sighted about the many problems that existed at a point when the city was drowning in drugs and crime, and the country was reeling from Vietnam. But it is a deeply affectionate picture, a warts and all portrait of its people struggling to achieve that point of balance, to make their own walk, to recognise the occasional moment of magic in their own lives.

In the end I loved the book, but it took a while for me to get there. Rather appropriately, it was almost exactly at the mid-point that I suddenly became invested in the lives McCann describes. I suspect this is one of those books that will actually work better on a re-read, because knowing how the stories play out will add the emotional content to the early chapters which I felt was a little lacking on a first read.

Although I grew to love it, I can't in truth say the book is unflawed. Some of the chapters are little more than long streams of foul-mouthed, unimaginative swearing, either in dialogue or when he's writing some characters' narratives in first person. An author should do more than pick up speech traits – mimicry is not art. Being brutal about it, one can train a parrot to repeat speech. But in fiction, an author should be able to achieve a sense of authenticity without simply parroting the poor language skills of the people on whom he's basing his characters.

It's a pity because, when he ceases the mimicry and writes in his own creative voice, he writes quite beautifully. The sections where he describes Petit's preparation and walk create such brilliant atmosphere that I felt all the terror and exhilaration as if I were there on top of the Tower with him. His characterisation is superb – these people gradually became real to me so that I cared what happened to them. And he avoids any emotional trickery or contrived coincidence, so that their stories feel as real as their personalities.

The other major flaw is that some of the sections don't add anything and, in fact, serve only to break the flow and interrupt the development of an emotional bond between reader and characters. Some of the threads carry through the book, recurring and twining around each other, like an intricate dance. But a few of them are entirely separate – for example, the section about the boy who photographs graffiti on the underground, or the hackers who – well, I can't really tell you what the hackers do, because it was so full of unnecessary techie jargon that almost the only words I understood were the incessant swear words, and I tired of them so thoroughly I skipped the bulk of that chapter in the end. I guess McCann was trying to cover everything he could think of that was relevant to New York or the time, but I felt the book would have been tighter and more effective if it had stayed more focused.

Despite all this, the major stories have a depth and fundamental truth to them that in the end lifts the book to within touching distance of greatness. Corr, the religious brother working amongst New York's prostitutes and drug dealers, is caught between his vow of celibacy and his love for a woman. Tillie tells her own story of her life as a prostitute and her shame as she sees her beloved daughter Jazzlyn follow her onto the streets. Claire is mourning the son she lost in Vietnam and trying to find a kind of solace in the company of other bereaved mothers. Gloria, whose life would have broken many women, finding a way to survive by holding out a generous hand to those around her. Solomon, the judge who spends his days brokering deals and plea bargains, suddenly tasked to find an appropriate punishment for this man who has committed trespass to walk between the Towers, and in doing so has caused a whole city to raise its eyes. As they cross each other's paths, McCann shows how single moments can change entire lives, and ripple out to touch the lives of others.

McCann paints New York as a city that lived for the moment, instantly forgetting its own history – a place without the memorials and statues that fill other great capitals of the world. And he leaves the reader to realise how that all changed when the Twin Towers fell – their absence a memorial that will exist as long as anyone remembers seeing them soar above the city skyline, and will have a half-life in photos, newsreels, art and literature for long after that. But as his characters walk their own wires and the great world spins, ultimately he reminds us that some moments bring magic and wonder rather than tragedy, and hope exists even at the darkest times. 4 ½ stars for me, so rounded up.

5 people found this helpful

GeordieReader

Intricate, beautifully-written but uneven

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 August 2014

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This is a set of short stories set in New York, mainly in the 1970s. The main characters appear in more than one story, but the event that the links them is Philip Petit's tightrope walk between the twin towers in 1974.

There is much to admire in this book. It is very cleverly done and most of the characters are memorably and sympathetically drawn,,particularly the three bereaved mothers, Claire, Tillie and Gloria. However, I have an issue with the format. It doesn't have the narrative thrust of a novel and yet not all the stories stand alone. Some of them would seem quite mediocre if read out of context.

Unlike some reviewers, I liked the ending. True, it tied everything up a bit too neatly but I was happy to find out what had happened in later years. Some of it was quite surprising but made perfect sense.

2 people found this helpful

Clare Wigzell

Solace

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2013

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Colin McCann has taken a long hard look at the painful bits of our western world and woven a novel to help us accept and feel redeemed by them. He does not duck hard things like racism, violence, drugs and prostitution. He does not judge or romanticize. In fact he has done more than that. He gives us a wide range of human experience. He shows us what we are capable of both high and low. His running metaphor or the tightrope walker, a man who is so at one with himself that he can dance along the wire, celebrates the brilliance of the human spirit. His characters, especially the most unlikely such as Tilly, the prostitute, walk their own tightrope lives with the same brilliance. He shows us that we can live our lives that way as well.

3 people found this helpful

ant5009

Marvellous read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 2019

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I really enjoyed this book. It would have gotten 5 stars but for the fact that halfway through I lost the thread with 2 chapters which seemed unrelated to the narrative. To this day, I remain mystified about those 2 chapters. I actually wondered if they were in the wrong book as they seemed unrelated. The rest was spellbinding and very moving.

Donna Green

Think this is the only short story book I've ever liked

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 December 2020

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A perfect book,well written, interesting characters and story.loved the interlinked between stories. The chapter about the high wire walking was stunning. I loved how he was depicted

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