Books: “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann

Every New Yorker had an opinion about the Twin Towers—and they were mostly negative ones. To more than a few people, it was an unloved monstrosity with a mediocre restaurant at the 107th floor.

Yet when the planes crashed into the Towers 23 years ago and killed over 3,000 people, these same New Yorkers suddenly realized they knew at least one person who died in the tragedy—causing them to change their views completely.

Long before 9/11–about 50 years ago this August, in fact—a man named Philippe Petit made the Towers famous in another way. He somehow managed—with a bow and arrow, it was said—to secure a tightrope between Towers 1 and 2, then proceeded to walk and dance across it, defying gravity and astonishing onlookers around the world. It is this event that inspired Colum McCann’s absolutely perfect 2009 novel “Let the Great World Spin.”

What makes “Spin” so remarkable is that it is not a strict reportage of the events of August 7, 1974. Rather, it examines the tightrope walk from the POVs of a handful of New York residents who didn’t see it first hand but whose lives were affected by it—and somehow brought together by it.

We first meet Corrigan, the radical young Irish immigrant who becomes a self-appointed holy man, working and living among the hookers and drug addicts of the South Bronx. Then there are the two youthful Sixties’ burnouts who, driving while stoned, cause a fatal auto accident.

We also encounter an ad-hoc group of mothers who lost their sons in the Vietnam War and who meet regularly to grieve together. One of them, Claire, is a Park Avenue matron whose husband is a judge that must sentence the tightrope walker for his “crime.” All of these individuals eventually connect and it is intriguing to see how they do so.

The best writers—Ed Doctorow (whose style is similar to McCann’s) and Hernan Diaz (who wrote “Trust”)—are masters at weaving disparate stories seamlessly. To this list we must add Colum McCann. While his storytelling and plotting keep the novel moving, one must take the time to stop and savor his simple, minimalistic prose, reminiscent of early Raymond Carver.

No, we can never forget 9/11 nor the Twin Towers nor how their destruction changed every aspect of our lives. But “Let the Great World Spin,” a 2010 National Book Award winner, calls to mind a World Trade Center that even though ugly once represented the limitless potential of New York. Happy Fourth.

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