Literary Fiction · ThoughtfulNew York on the August day in 1974 when a man walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers
Let the Great World Spin
by Colum McCann
Many New Yorkers' lives touch on the day a man walks a tightrope between the Twin Towers
Ciaran travels to New York to visit his younger brother Corrigan, a Jesuit who works at a nursing home in the Bronx and befriends local prostitutes. On August 7, 1974, Corrigan asks Ciaran to cover his shift so that he can meet a woman after her court hearing. That is the same day Philippe Petit walks a tightrope between the Twin Towers, and a car crash on the FDR Drive sets other stories moving. The novel follows eleven people whose lives link together, some of whom never meet.
More about this book
Who
Eleven main characters, among them Ciaran, his brother Corrigan, the nurse Adelita, a mother and daughter named Tillie and Jazzlyn, and an Upper East Side judge and his wife.
World
New York City in 1974, centered on August 7, with an epilogue in 2006.
What makes it different
The book is non-linear, with many narrators, and it retells the key events from different points of view. Passages about Philippe Petit's walk run through it.
Feel
Interwoven and moving. It won the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- Let the Great World SpinWikipedia