National Book Award Winner: Let the Great World Spin

Sat, 01/23/2010 - 11:06am by Caser

Sure, I picked up Colum McCann's 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin, because it won this year's National Book Award for adult fiction, and I was expecting to read high-minded modern literature, rife with esoteric literary allusions and extended metaphor a la Joyce or Pynchon. In short, I thought it might be a book that one starts, gets a flavor for the style, and quietly returns to the library without finishing. But this is not one of those books.

On the crowded streets of New York City, it is 1974; prostitutes line South Bronx corners, graffiti artists tag the subways, and an immigrant monk has a crisis of faith. Above the din, in an upper east side apartment, a group of women convene to mourn the loss of their sons in Vietnam. And up in the sky, between the newly built (though nearly empty) twin towers, a tightrope walker dances above the city's madness. The stories of these characters are interwoven brilliantly by McCann, who gracefully reveals the depths of values and emotions of which humans are capable. Ultimately, the power of this novel is born not in fanciful words, but in the raw truth of its characters.