Book Review: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

It is difficult to articulate how Colum McCann has managed to weave together, layer and merge half a dozen plot lines to create this extraordinarily well-written this book. He can take the most basic mechanical action and create a sentence you can roll around in you brain for hours of amusement -

“Revolving doors pushed quarters of conversation out into the street”

His wordmanship is just the beginning. McCann has consumed New York City – devoured it somehow in large impressive chunks and then described the taste and texture of the city’s hidden landscapes like a man who has eaten from this table for a dozen lifetimes.

She pulls again on the cigarette and looks over the wall. A momentary vertigo. The creek of yellow taxis along the street, the crawl of green in the median of the avenue, the saplings just planted.
I ran down the slick steps of the apartment building. Huge swirls of fat graffiti on the walls. The drift of hash smoke. Broken glass on the bottom steps. The smells of piss and puke. Through the courtyard. A man held a pit bull on a training rope. He was teaching it to bite.

The lynchpin of this novel is based on an event in August of 1974 when a tightrope walker surreptitiously slung his rope between the towers of the World Trade Center and attempted to walk the high wire between the two buildings – 104 stories in the air.

Let the Great World Spin follows the Corrigan brothers, as they emigrate from Ireland to New York City. The plot quickly widens it’s net to encompass a larger cast. The multitude of richly-described characters are pulled into the vortex of the brothers lives and ultimately tied together by the high wire performance. The story line develops much like a carnie vendor spins cotton candy unto a paper cone – a delicate cloud that grows with each turn of the wrist.

Character descriptions are truthful and resound with recognizable honesty - for example, the judge who will preside over the hearing for the tightrope walker:
At Yale when he was young and headstrong, he’d been sure that one day he’d be the very axis of the world, that his life would be one of deep impact.
Have we not all at one time felt the certainly that we were the centre of the universe?

And again, a simple description speaks volumes:

She was the sort of woman who becomes more beautiful the more you watch her: the dark hair, almost blue in the light, the curve of her neck, a mole by her left eye, a perfect blemish.

Let the Great World Spin is a delight to read. It is an excellent addition to any summer reading list. It makes me want to try things I have never been interested in – like visit New York City in the hope of catching some small flavour as described by McCann.

Buffer