TransAtlantic: A Novel [B1477]

2014 PB in nice clean condition. LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS. McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined. Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators-Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown-set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War. Dublin, 1845 and '46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause-despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave. New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland's notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion. These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory. The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I wasn't sure how he could do it, weave a beautiful story out the first three historical chapters. And yet it turns into a wonderful telling of mother to her daughter to her daughter to her daughter. It starts in Dublin and ends three generations later in Belfast. McCann is a great storyteller AND phenomenal wordsmith. I highly recommend this book."; "After the first section I began to think I was reading short stories and then the threads started to entwine the characters. I like the characters and how life swirls families around in a whirlpool, connecting and disconnecting over the decades. Great writing, truly great writing."; "Crafted. Every sentence, every phrase. A Bolero of building. The past swirls into the present and touches us all."