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chelseagirlThe last book I loved this much was Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies. It's wonderful to find a book you want to get lost in like this . . .
New York City in 1974 was a run-down, uneasy place, trapped in a spiral of decay. Colum McCann's novel captures the spirit of the place and the people eloquently and movingly, the despair and isolation, the community and the hope. The stories of a disparate group of New Yorkers are linked together by Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers: a monk working among prostitutes in the Bronx; his brother, newly arrived from Dublin; one of the prositutes; a Park Avenue matron (Claire, perhaps named to echo Clarissa Dalloway of whom she reminded me a bit) reaching out uncertainly to other mothers of soldiers killed in Vietnaml her judge husband; and a couple of art world refugees. While a few of the sections (particularly one of computer hackers working on the early Arpanet) are weaker than the others, but overall, this beautifully written book was one that I never wanted to end.
New York City in 1974 was a run-down, uneasy place, trapped in a spiral of decay. Colum McCann's novel captures the spirit of the place and the people eloquently and movingly, the despair and isolation, the community and the hope. The stories of a disparate group of New Yorkers are linked together by Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers: a monk working among prostitutes in the Bronx; his brother, newly arrived from Dublin; one of the prositutes; a Park Avenue matron (Claire, perhaps named to echo Clarissa Dalloway of whom she reminded me a bit) reaching out uncertainly to other mothers of soldiers killed in Vietnaml her judge husband; and a couple of art world refugees. While a few of the sections (particularly one of computer hackers working on the early Arpanet) are weaker than the others, but overall, this beautifully written book was one that I never wanted to end.
