Let The Great World Spin, a novel by Colum McCann, brings together four stories in 1970's New York. Each story focuses on an individual who has overcome, or is overcoming, a internal struggle. Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles to find peace with himself after losing God, and he questions his morals and his sanity. Claire gathers with a group of mothers who mourn together the loss of their sons in Vietnam. Her grief divides her amongst herself and her peers. Lara, a young artist, finds herself running from a hit-and-run accident downtown. She is chased by her demons, and struggles to get her mind off of the life she's taken. Along with Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, who turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. While caught up in their own stories, these characters are brought together when they look to the sky and see a tightrope walker suspended a quarter mile above the ground; dancing, leaping, running between the Twin Towers. McCann weaves together these seemingly separate tales of life in Manhattan and tells a story of hope, beauty, and the "artistic crime of the century."
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Photography: Chester Higgins www.wikipedia.com http://colummccann.com |