Favourite Summer Read

Over the school holidays, I had the luxury of taking a cup of tea back to bed in the morning or sitting out on the sunlounger watching the kids in the pool and indulging in my favourite pastime - reading. I read many books but the one that kept me thinking about it well after I had finished was "Let the Great World Spin" by Irish American author, Colum McCann.

This is a very different style of book to the novels I usually read as it was more a collection of interconnecting short stories.

From the Allen & Unwin website:
"New York, August 1974. A man is walking in the sky and the city stands still, captivated by this sight, awe and disbelief filling the streets. Philipe Petit is making his famous tightrope walk across the World Trade Centre and the lives of seven people will change forever.

Set against a time of sweeping political and social change, from the imminent resignation of Nixon to the beginnings of the Internet, the burgeoning minimalist art movement to the lingering sceptre of the oil crisis, a single audacious event will intricately bind these apparent strangers, transforming their lives forever."

I really liked the use of the real event of the man tightrope walking between the Twin Towers to connect the stories, but also that a supporting character in one story becomes the main character in another story, and that parts of the story were told from different points of view.

The stories reflected many of the issues of the time: surrounded by the violence and poverty of the Bronx area, an Irish monk helps the prostitutes and the elderly, a group of mothers from different walks of life whose sons had died in the Vietnam War, meet at each of their houses to share their son's life with others who understand the pain they are going through, the first computers and the hacking community that evolved with their use, the disillusioned judge working in a legal system drowning under the weight of so many, and the passenger in the car which was involved in a fatal accident morally torn between not stopping and the alternative of being caught high on drugs and alcohol.

I found this youtube video on the Allen & Unwin site and found Colum McCann to be a compelling speaker. It was only after I watched the video that I understood the connection that Colum McCann was making between 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the 1974 wire walking event.




Radio National's programme "The Book Show" did an interview with Colum in September last year. If you are interested, you can hear it at
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2675772.htm

For those interested in the Philipe Petit wire walk, a documentary of the walk was made in 2008 - "Man on Wire".

If you try the book "Let The Great World Spin", I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.