Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER Colum McCann's beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit's daring high-wire stunt, which is also depicted in the film The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann's stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people.
Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author's most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.
Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann's powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city's people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the "artistic crime of the century."
A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a "fiercely original talent" (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.
Format: Paperback | 400 pages
Dimensions (cm): 20.3 x 13.2 x 2 | 294g
Publication Date: 30 Nov 2009
Publisher: Random House
Publication City/Country: New York, United States
Language: English
ISBN10: 0812973992
ISBN13: 9780812973990
Condition: Good
A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including very minor scuff marks along the edges, and a minor crease on the top-left corner of the back cover, but no holes or tears. The majority of pages are undamaged with very minimal creasing, but no tearing. No pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text and no writing in margins. No missing pages.