Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Let the Great World Spin: A Novel/a>

Confession. David and I started this book last summer on our long road trip to Vermont, and although we were both enjoying it at the time, I didn't rush to complete it UNTIL I realized that it qualifies as another Irish challenge book. I shouldn't have waited so long. Let the Great World Spin is a series of interrelated observer viewpoints of the famous tightrope walk between the Twin Tower by Phillipe Petit in August of 1974. Each story is compelling - the Irish priest who befriends a group of local prostitutes, a group of women meeting to mourn sons lost to the senselessness of war, a hippy artist couple, some cell-wave hacking techies and a New York city judge. More compelling is the kinetic thread of connection between them. Frank McCourt - the Irish literary hero of recent tines - reviewed the book with the promise that this is a book you will take off your bookshelf to revisit time and again. I agree.