Let the Great World Spin: A Novel [B1949-PB]

2009 PB in nice clean condition. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • Colum McCann's beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit's daring high-wire stunt. 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 Spincaptures 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.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Halfway through reading this I knew I would be rating it 5/5 stars!!! I love when a storyline weaves together different plots and this book does it SO BEAUTIFULLY. I also love the way New York itself is a character in the novel and how each of the chapters offer a new perspective on the city. Started this book with no idea what it'd be about and now it is the newest addition to my favorite book list."; "Love the 'everyone is connected' vibe and the proximity and interconnectedness of our lives that is just beyond our grasp and vision."; "A very different book to read, I kept waiting for a chapter to appear, but that never happened! It could almost be a collection of short stories but the book evolves and all the interesting characters are all connected. An intriguing read."; "Might just be of the great reads of my life."