sunday salons

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

March 7, 2010

Video production by Skye MacLeod

Most of us remember Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center and still wonder what it meant. This remarkable novel is shocking and heartbreaking in what it reveals about the diverse lives somehow linked by what the 'man on the wire' suggests to each one. It has to do with New York from the Deegan to Rikers Island to Park Avenue—with Nixon and the Vietnam War in the background. '...life is lived in many ways—'thinks one character,'.....so many unopened envelopes....' McCann opens many. New visions appear. And the world spins on.

 

"The repeated lies become history, but they don't necessarily become the truth."
-Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin)