Apeirogon by Colum McCann - 2021- 480 Pages - a novel

 Apeirogon - by Colum McCann - A Novel - 2020 - 480 Pages 

“apeirogon: A polygon having an infinite number of sides and vertices”

I have been following the work of Colum McCann for nine years.

Here are my suggestions as to reading order for his prior six novels.

1.  Let the Great World Keep on Spinning.  His most awarded book to date.

2.  Transatlantic is actually my favorite but it is not yet as famous as the above work.  It was nominated for The Booker Prize.

Proceed on in McCann if you  like these novels, I certainly did.

3.  Zoli - revolves about a Roma woman (gypsy) who became a well known poet.  I am very interested in this culture so that helped me like the book.

4.  Dancer - about Rudolph Nureyev, fascinating in parts.  

 

5.   Everything in this Country Must. -   An internationally roaming but rooted in Ireland search by a man for his father.  Parts are brilliant

6.  This Side of Brightness 6th place McCann still worth reading.- 

What are your favorite McCann novels and stories?

I think I would put Apeirogon now at least in third place.

Apeirogon deals very profoundly with conflict between Israelis and Palestians over living territory.   To Palestinians Israelis have stolen their land, treated them with great inequity.  Israelis, The country was founded by Holocaust survivors, feel they are occupy ing  a God ordained homeland they will defend at all costs.  

The novel is structured on the actual experiences of two fathers whose daughters  were innocent victims, collateral damage, in the conflict.  Rami Elhanan is an Isreali grahic designer whose Young daughter was killed by a suicide bomber and Bassam Aramin, is a Palestinian scholar of the Holocaust.  As a Young man he spent Seven years as a political prisoner.  His daughter was killed by Isreali Defense forces, perhaps by accident.  Told in 1001 episodes, the  novel ranges widely in Middle Eastern history, goes into detail about the birds of the area, the economics and the Apartheid like policy imposed on those of Arabic heritage who live in Israeli.  The two men in time begin to engage in speaking engagements urging the end of the conflict.

I agree with The Guardian’s assesment of Apeirogon

“It is a strange time for a novel as full-hearted as Apeirogon. It feels as if the situation in the Middle East is always a reflection of its age... But perhaps that’s the point – the desperation of the situation has brought forth a work of art whose beauty, intelligence and compassion may go some way to changing things. Is it absurd to suggest that a novel might succeed where generations of politicians have failed? Perhaps, but then Apeirogon is the kind of book that comes along only once in a generation.”

Apeirogon is a challenging novel, both in content and method.

Whatever effort it reauires Will be more than repaid.

From http://colummccann.com

Colum McCann is the author of seven novels and three collections of stories. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he has been the recipient of many international honours, including the U.S National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish arts academy, several European awards, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. In 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts.  His work has been published in over 40 languages.  He is the President and co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4. He is the Thomas Hunter Writer in Residence in Hunter College, in New York, where he lives with his wife Allison and their family.  His most recent novel, Apeirogon, became an immediate New York Times best-seller and won several major international awards.

 

Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann (April, 2017)

My Posts on Colum McCann

Through the wonderful fiction of Colum McCann I have wandered through ravaged post World War Two Eastern Europe with Roma, been a tunnel digger in New York City, made a transatlantic flight in 1917 from the USA to Ireland, met Rudolf Nureyev and Frederick Douglas, walked across a very high wire while the great world spinned on.

Letters to a Young Writer is based on the experience and wisdom McCann acquired in teaching for twenty years in the MFA program at Hunter College in New York City.  The program takes two years and accepts only twelve applicants out of hundreds.  Students have

 gone on to win a Booker Prize and other top literary awards.  He tells us he begins his class by informing  his students creative writing cannot really be taught and then he tells them to open their minds and prepare to learn.

There are fifty three chapters, each one readable in just a minute or two.  McCann ranges over topics such as what to read (read difficult books, Ulysses is his candidate for greatest novel ever written), where to write, what music you might play while writing, finding and dealing with an agent, how to employ your personal life in your work, assuming your readers are at least as smart as you think you are, down to dealing with success and learning from failure.

I am not an aspiring writer of fiction but I believe very strongly that deep reading is one of the most creative arts and the greatest tribute one can pay to a writer.  Much of McCann's advise about writing could apply to reading. You just have to use your imagination and free yourself from the bonds of pedagogy.

I highly recommend this book to all aspiring  writers.

"Sh'Khol" and "Treaty" two short stories by Colum McCann (2015, included in Thirteen Ways of Looking)

This is my second post in observation of Irish Short Story Month Year VI.  My first  post was also on two works by Colum McCann (1951, Dublin) from his latest collection, Thirteen Ways of Looking.

My quick thoughts and ranking on the novels by Colum McCann I have so far read and posted upon. 

1.  TransAtlantic - I love this book 

2.  Let the Great World Go On Spinning. Huge international best seller. 

3.  Dancer- a powerful book centered on Rudolph Nureyev.   Parts of it are at perfect but not quite as good as the first two selections.

4.  Zoli -   Good look at post WWII Roma culture. 

5.  Songdogs - his first novel, parts are really good, parts a bit shaky but very much worth reading. About New York City Tunnel Diggers

6.  This Side of Brightness. Interesting work.

"Sh'Khol" is set on the rugged sea coast of Galway, a place I have the great pleasure of visiting.  It is about a woman taking care by herself of a mentally challenged preteen age boy she and her husband adopt d b fore they divorced. Her husband lives in Dublin, she in Galway.  The story is about what happens when the boy without permission or supervision puts on a wet suit his mother got him for Christmad and goes for a swim in turbulent Galway Bay.  He does not return and a very dramatic attempt bybthexauthorties to find him unfolds before our eyes.  Her ex husband accuses her of being neglectful and careless.  This is a very suspenseful story and I will leave the ending untold.  

"Treaty" is told by a seventy three year old Catholic nun, come to Galway to rest.  She is shocked to see on TV a man who tortured her thirty seven years ago when she was working to help the poor in Columbia.  At time he was part of an extreme right wing group but now he is advocating peace and is affiliated with a left wing organization.  She begins to have involuntary memories of the horrible torture she underwent.  She tells others around her and they tell her she might be confused, maybe her memories are not quite right.  The close of the story is very powerful.

Thirteen Ways of Looking is one of many contemporary continuances of the tradition of the great Irish  short story tradition.

Mel u

Thirteen Ways of Looking and "What Time is it Now". - A Novella and a short story by Colum McCann (2016)

This is the six year in which I have treated March as Irish Short Story Month.  This year i have no Plans other than to post upon a few Irish short stories.  If I had the energy and focus I would create a seperate blog devoted only to the Irish short story.

                                                                       

Colum McCann ( Dublin,1951) has written six highly regarded novels in addition to his short stories and novellas.

My quick thoughts and ranking on the novels by Colum McCann I have so far read and posted upon. 

1.  TransAtlantic - I love this book 

2.  Let the Great World Go On Spinning. Huge international best seller. 

3.  Dancer- a powerful book centered on Rudolph Nureyev.   Parts of it are at perfect but not quite as good as the first two selections.

4.  Zoli -   Good look at post WWII Roma culture. 

5.  Songdogs - his first novel, parts are really good, parts a bit shaky but very much worth reading.

6.  This Side of Brightness. Interesting work.

Today I will just post briefly on a novella and a short story from Colum's latest book Thirteen Ways of Looking.

The title work is a novella centering on the murder of a retired New York judge, killed in the streets of the city.  It is in part murder mystery work overlaid with the judge's involuntary memories of his long life, mostly about his deceased wife and his career as an attorney and a judge.  In the present he thinks a lot about his Caribbean caretaker Sally and his son Eliot, a very sucessful business man in a bit of trouble because of an affair with a female employee.  The unraveling of the murder mystery is really well done.  I will leave the mystery for new readers to discover.  

"What Time is it Now" is kind of a work of meta-fiction.  It is a short story about a writer working on a story about a woman serving in the American army in Afganistan.  I found it interesting.

There is a another Novella and short story in the collection and I hope to read them soon.

This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann (2003). The Reading Life Recommended Reading Order for His Novels

I am now a bit sad to have read all six of Colum McCann's novels.   I know it will be a few years until I have the pleasure of reading another one.  This Side of Brightness is my least favorite of his novels but I still enjoyed reading it.  McCann's descriptive powers make anything he writers worth reading.  

This Side of Brightness is about the men who dug the first tunnel into New York City.  The work begun as W W I was firing up.  The men, a very diverse group, who dug the tunnel were called "sand hogs".  The work was very dangerous and very hard.  The sand hogs bonded across national and racial boundaries.  You were a sand hog before you were Irish, Italian, Black, or German.  A lot of the book is taken up with the ramifications of racial prejudice.  We follow several sand hogs as they live on after the tunnel is completed, through three generations.    

Here are my suggestions as to reading order for his six novels.

1.  Let the Great World Keep on Spinning.  His most awarded book to date.

2.  Transatlantic is actually my favorite but it is not yet as famous as the above work.  It is nominated for The Booker Prize and has to be a strong contender for the 2014 Irish novel of the year prize.

Proceed on in McCann if you really like these novels, I certainly did.

3.  Zoli - revolves about a Roma woman (gypsy) who became a well known poet.  I am very interested in this culture so that helped me like the book.

4.  Dancer - about Rudolph Nureyev, fascinating in parts.  

 

5.   Everything in this Country Must. -   An internationally roaming but rooted in Ireland search by a man for his father.  Parts are brilliant

6.  This Side of Brightness 6th place McCann still worth reading.

What are your favorite McCann novels and stories?

Mel u 

Songdogs by Colum McCann (1995, 212 pages)

Songdogs is the first novel of Colum McCann (Dublin, 1965) and the fifth of his six novels I have so far read and posted about.  Here is my order of preference for his works:

1.  TransAtlantic - I love this book - if you only one 2013 novel this year, consider this one.  

2.  Let the Great World Go On Spinning. Huge international best seller. 

3.  Dancer- a powerful book centered on Rudolph Nureyev.   Parts of it are at perfect but not quite as good as the first two selections.

4.  Zoli -   Good look at post WWII Roma culture. 

5.  Songdogs - his first novel, parts are really good, parts a bit shaky but very much worth reading.

Songdogs has several of the elements of your standard Irish novel; a weak rascal of a father, whiskey soaked story line, an obsession about what it means to be Irish and a sense in which the central character does not really become Irish until he travels outside the country.  The father in the story wants above all else to take photographs and sell them.  He was born under dubious circumstances and ended up with a small inheritance which allowed him to leave Ireland with a Leica.  

I do not feel inclined toward retelling the plot.  Here is what I liked about it.   The level of prose is wonderful, the scenes set in the dust of Mexico make a perfect contrast to Ireland.  I liked the relationship of the father and his Mexican wife and that of the son to both of them.   I enjoyed seeing his love for photography and how it shaped his life.  I thought the ending was brilliant.  I found some of the minor characters a little underdeveloped.    All in all I would say read my first two picks then if you want just read the ones that sound most interesting to you.  I still have one McCann novel to go and hope to read it one day.

Mel u

  

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (2013)

2013 is not half over yet but if TransAnlantic  by Colum McCann is not the Irish book of the year then be prepared to be amazed by  what could beat it.  I have read four of McCann's six novels and some of his short stories.   The Great World Keeps On Spinning is his best selling and, I think, highest regarded book.  I am almost ready to say that, over all, TransAtlantic, is the best of his work.   I say overall as each of works has amazing segments and there  is significant stylistic variations within the novels and each are told through multiple points of view and contain dazzling segments.  

TransAtlantic tells three interconnected stories, some through four generations.  The way McCann makes the stories connect is just terribly clever and creative without being at all contrived.   All of the stories are very much Irish centered.  McCann makes use, as he did in Dancer, of historical figures in his narrative.  In Transatlantic Frederick Douglas (1812 to 1878), born into slavery in the American south and who in time became a central figure in the fight for the abolition of slavery through his speeches and writings, plays a very central role.  

Even though the book is not yet officially released (I thank the publisher for offering me a review copy) the different narrative segments of the book have been outlined already in several places.   One thing McCann is just great at, painfully so in the opening of Dancer, is bringing the  horrors of war to life.  The book opens with a marvelous segment about two ex-WW I aviators and their attempt to make the first Transatlantic  flight (1919)   Both men suffered terribly in the war.  They bonded over their love of flight and the mechanics of planes.  Their plane was an old bomber.  The flight had to be done in under  72 hours to win a sunstatial cash prize. Their  route was to be Newfoundland, Canada to Ireland.  The flight across is horrifying but some how exhilarating.   They lose heat shortly after taking off, parts of the plane begin to separate, they have no way to communicate with each other but through gestures, and hardly enough food for the very long trip.   Before they leave, they meet a mother daughter team of journalist and photographer that will play a big part in the narrative.  If you have every agonized or complained your way through a very long flight, you might not after reading of their experiences.  I admit I loved it when the plane landed in a bog in Ireland.   It was all so exciting.  

 The second segment of the book, you do not realize the connection between the first and second segment for sometime on, focuses on the visit of Frederick Douglass (1818 to 1895) to Dublin in 1845 to raise support and money for the movement to abolish slavery in the United States.   Douglas was a brilliant speaker and there is also an underlying fascination with his background and life story.   He is the guest of a wealthy very liberal anti-slavery family and is first shown only the parts of Dublin they want him to see and is given access only to the elite.   Douglass soon begins too see the horrible poverty in which most  Dubliners live, he begins to directly relate to the Catholic poor of Dublin.  During his extended and financially successful visit he comes to see the start of the first famine when the potato crop fails.  This has been described before but it needs to be redone regularly least it be forgotten and McCann predictably does a great job.  Douglass leaves Ireland knowing the country even during the worst of the plague produces three to four times enough food needed to feed the population.   Much of the narrative turns on an Irish maid who got the courage to leave for America from Douglass.  We will follow her family through generations, her experiences as a civil war nurse in America are just amazing well done.  

The final narrative segment centers on a very powerful American senator who President Bill Clinton has asked to try to bring peace to the warring sections in Northern Ireland.  It is a good look into the power brokers of the time.   If forced to, I would say this might be the weakest segment but maybe I just need to read it better.

Each of the segments and the people in them are connected in ways I did not see in advance.  There are terribly sad things in this book and equally wonderful events.  

One of the things the book could be said to be about is how random connections can shape generations of people.   It is very much a historical work about what it means to be Irish, about the diaspora, about class distinctions, about the changing face of modern Ireland, and it even deals with issues related to the fall of The Celtic Tiger.  

My prediction is that this book will be an international best seller and will rightly win numerous awards.  

I cannot really visualize anyone into quality literature not liking this book and devotees of Irish fiction should treat it as a must read.

I have a copy of McCann's Songdogs and hope to read it soon.

Please share your experience with McCann with us.

Mel u

Dancer by Colum McCann (2003, 374 pages)

Dancer by Colum McCann (Dublin, 1965) was a very intense read, almost painfully so in the opening sections set among Russian soldiers in WWII being evacuated in railroad cars, novel based on the life of the great Russian ballet dancer, Rudolph Nureyev.   This is the third novel by McCann which I have read.  Prior to this I have read his Let the Great World Go On Spinning dealing largely with post 9/11 attack New York City life and his wonderful book about a post WWII European Roma, Zoli.  

Normally if one says, "the book was 337 pages long but it felt longer", it is not a complement but somehow in this case it is as there is just so much in this incredible novel.   We begin with Nureyev as a very young boy dancing for the people in his home town in Russia.  We see the tortuous process that took him into training to be a dancer in Russia.  We come to understand his family.  We are with him when he defects in Paris and for his great triumphs in New York City, London, and elsewhere.  We get to know others in his life as the novels varies both the narrator and narrative modes.  In one very powerful section we enter the drug  fueled world of rich artistic gay New York as personified by a Venezuelan street hustler raised to the status of superstar by his affiliations.   McCann frankly depicts the extreme sexual promiscuity of Nureyev, in one scene he and the Venezuelan stage a contest to see who can perform oral sex on the most men in a row without tiring.  Nureyev wins with nine.    There are some wonderful  characters like his shoe maker,  Margot Fonteyn with whom he danced over 500 times, his housekeeper, Andy Warhol makes an appearance as does Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams.    

We see how Nureyev spends the fortune he makes.  in one crazy scene he buys a painting for $50,000.00 and then takes it home in a cab to avoid the $100.00 delivery fee.  There are lots of things we never understand about Nureyev.  His ego was massive and he never really rose above his Tarter roots.  He could be cruelly capricious, and very generous almost simultaneously.   Somehow one is deeply drawn to Nureyev, his flaws make him real, his art transcends our normalcy.,

Dancer is a great novel.  I endorse it to all but the homophobic who I suspect probably do not read a lot of books based on ballet dancers anyway.  There is much to be learnt from in this novel.  

I have his Songdogs and hope to read it and his forthcoming Transatlantic soon. 

Mel u

"Fishing the Sloe-Black River" by Colum McCann

"Fishing the Sloe-Black River" by Colum McCann (2004, 5 pages)

Irish Short Story Month

Year Three

March 1 to April 7

Colum McCann

Dublin

I have recently read two of Colum McCann's novels, Let the Great World Spin and Zoli, both of which I totally loved.  During Irish Short Story Week Year II I posted on a podcast of "Transatlantic", I am not quite sure if this was originally meant as a stand alone short story or if it was an extract from his forthcoming novel of the same name. I am eagerly awaiting the publication of Transatlantic.    I have also read and posted on his short story, "Aisling".

"Fishing the Sloe-River". the title story in a collection of that name, is stylistically very like parts of Let the Great World Spin.  It is set in rural Ireland on the day of a football game.    The players are just guys from the locality, some are actually pretty good and some cannot run half field without a rest.   McCann gives us very brilliant one or two sentence descriptions of the players.  While the men play the wives from both teams are fishing in the Sloe-River, hoping to catch something for the family.   This is described very visually and I can picture the women casting out their lines, all baited with bread.   There is not really much of a traditional plot, it is pretty much impressionistic.   There is a very well done closing conversation between one of the women and her husband.

From the author's webpage

Short bio:

Colum McCann was born in Ireland in 1965. He is the author of five novels and two collections of stories. He has been the recipient of many international honours, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Impac Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish arts academy, several European awards, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. His work has been published in over 30 languages. He lives in New York with his wife, Allison, and their three children. He teaches at the MFA program in Hunter College.

Mel u

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (2009, 375 pages)

Please share with us you picks for best contemporary Irish novels

I totally loved Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Dublin, 1965) as has almost everyone else who ever read it.  I do not feel inclined to retell much of the plot of such a well known novel.    The conception is just brilliant and very creative.   It starts out in August 1974 and a tight rope walker is walking on a wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade center in New York City.   This novel is about some very different people who witnessed the event.   It about so many things.  One of them is a thirty year portrait of New York City.   Maybe it is a love letter to the city but it is by a far from deluded lover who relishes the ugly side of his beloved at least as much as the beautiful side.   It is also a very Irish story, partially centering on two Irish brothers.

We meet and get to know from the inside some very different seeming kind of people all of whom turn out to be connected but you will never see the connections coming in advance.   We meet a mother and daughter from the poorest part of town, both prostitutes.  We meet an Irish monk working among the prostitutes of the  projects and his brother.   We meet a judge and his wife.  Along the way we meet a painter and his girl friend, whose father owns an American car company.   We meet a nursing home nurse we really like.

McCann takes us very deeply into his characters.   There was a car crash scene that was actually so realistic it was painful to read.  Let the Great World Spin makes us see as full human beings people we might dismiss as too unlike us, maybe because they are too poor, too rich or live in too odd a way.

This is a bit of a spoiler, but I really liked it when the took us to 2006 and we meet the daughter of one of the  women who walked the streets of New York City and we find out she attended Yale and now works for a charitable foundation in Little Rock.  It was so masterful how McCann left out the details of how this happened.    When she arrives in Dublin in 2006 I was totally fascinated.

As I said, I loved this book.   It won the USA National book award in 2008 for best fiction, the Amazon book of the year award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, among many others.

I have previously read and posted on his Zoli, set among European Roma and two of his short stories.   I am restricting my reading now pretty much only to works available as e-books and I have now, sad to say read all of his.   He has another fascinating sounded novel coming out in June 2013, Transatlantic and I have it on pre-order.

Mel u

Zoli: A Novel by Colum McCann

Zoli:  A Novel by Colum McCann  (2007, 352 pages, 487 KB)

The Irish Quarter

I am slowly reading novels, available as ebooks, by major contemporary Irish writers.  I have previously posted on two short stories by Colum McCann, (Ireland, 1965) both of which I really liked so I knew I wanted to read at least one of his novels. His most famous novel is Let the Great World Spin but I decided to first read his Zoli:   A Novel because I have a long standing, going back at least 15 years, interest in the Roma or as they are popularly called, Gypsies.  Colum first developed his interest in the Roma after reading Bury Me Standing:   The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca just as I did.  After reading that I read a number of books on the Roman including the very important The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies by Guenter Levy detailing the facts behind the death of 250,000 Roma at the hands of the Nazi's.  This is historically ironic in that the Roma actually have a better claim to Aryan blood than the Germans.

This novel is the story of a young woman born among eastern European Roma.  The community is very inward looking and very tradition bound.   The story begins in the early 1930s as Nazism begins to spread eastern Europe.  There was much local and imported hate for the Roma and we see the terrible cruelties of the Germans and their local allies, often crueler than the Germans.   The novel covers a lot of time and a lot of ground as we see her go from a starving refugee living by stealing and prostitution in the 1930s and 40s to being a cult status poet in Paris in 2003.   All of her family but her grandfather were killed by Fascists.  Going against Roma tradition on women, she learns to read and write.   She begins to write poetry and political authorities try to use her as the new voice of the Roma Proletariat.

The story is told in part by Zoli, in part by a man with whom she had a long term relationship and in part by others.  It starts in 2003 and shifts back and forth in time.  There is much to be learned about the culture of the Roma in the book.

This is a complex book, beautifully written with great research behind it.

I look forward to reading more by Colum MCann.

Please share your experience with Colum McCann with us.

As I read in the contemporary Irish novel, who are the not to miss authors, to you?

Mel u

"Transatlantic" by Colum McCann

"Transatlantic" by Colum McCann (podcast read by author, 53 minutes, April 16, 2012)

Free Breakfast for All 

The Irish Quarter:  A Celebration of the Irish Short Story

March 11 to July 1

Resources and Ideas 

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts by Participants

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two.   Everything you need to participate is on the resources page, including links to 1000s of short stories, from brand new ones to stories now in the public domain.   Guests posts are also welcome.  If you have any suggestions or questions please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

Colum McCann (Dublin, 1965) is one of the most famous of contemporary Irish writers.   He is best known for his post 9/11 novel, Let the Great World Spin.   I have previously posted on one of his short stories, "Aisling".   My main reason for posting on this story is to let readers of The Reading Life know that you listen to the author read the story on the fiction podcast of The New Yorker.    This maybe the only free opportunity to experience his work.   

I really enjoyed this story.   It is about the first transatlantic flight.  As the story opens we learn about the two pilots who will make the flight.  Both were participants in World War One and suffered terribly.   Both loved planes and flying pretty much more than anything else.   Back then you had to be a great mechanic to fly and you needed great courage.   There is a contest with a ten thousand pound prize for whoever makes the first flight across the Atlantic.   There are a number of people getting planes ready to try.   The worse possibility is that the prize might be won by a German who was a long range bomber pilot during the war.

We get to know both men well.   They are based on real figures.   We are there when they put the plane together and for sure, McCann has done a beautiful job with this, we are there on the terribly hard very long flight from the USA to Ireland.   It felt totally real to me when the men froze, when the plane began to fall apart and when they thought they were going down into the Atlantic.   There is also a mother daughter team of reporters, not real, that are a lot of fun and add value to the story.   This is really a joyous life affirming story about two men doing what they love.  

You can listen to the story here

Mel u

"Aisling" by Colum McCann

"Aisling" by Colum McCann (2011, six pages)

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two March 12 to March 22

Colum McCann (Dublin, Ireland, 1965) is a much awarded author of fiction.   His most recent book,  Let the Great World Spin (2009) is an allegory based on the New York City events of 9/11.    It won the very prestigious American National Book Award for fiction.    He has written for numerous periodicals.   He is a professor of Fiction at CUNY Hunter's College Fine Arts program.  

I have recently been reading some of the short stories in New Irish Short Stories edited and introduced by Jim  O'Connors.    There are lots of short stories in the collection by new to me writers, including Colum McCann.

"Aisling" (it may have been published prior to its 2011 publication in the anthology) is a very interesting story.   It is narrated in kind of a tale of my day by a married woman with children.   There are no dramatic developments and no big revelations but it is a wonderful slice of life and a touching look into the consciousness of the woman narrator.    The first sentence is about 150 words or so long.   It is not complicated or difficult prose it is just how people think when they go through their day in their minds.    We get to see how she feels about her sons and her husband and her life.   The prose has a wonderful rhythm that feels completely right to me.  It was a lot of fun to read this beautifully written story.

I would like to read more of the work of Colum McCann based on reading this short story.

Please share your experience with Colum McCann with us.

Mel u