This Side of Brightness, Colum McCann
This Side of Brightness, Colum McCann
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

This Side of Brightness

Author: Colum McCann

Narrator: Dion Graham

Unabridged: 8 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/25/2021


Synopsis

From the author of Songdogs, a magnificent work of imagination and history set in the tunnels of New York City.

In the early years of the century, Nathan Walker leaves his native Georgia for New York City and the most dangerous job in America. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the tunnel that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Above ground, the sandhogs--black, white, Irish, Italian--keep their distance from each other until a spectacular accident welds a bond between Walker and his fellow diggers--a bond that will bless and curse the next three generations.

Years later, Treefrog, a homeless man driven below by a shameful secret, endures a punishing winter in his subway nest. In tones ranging from bleak to disturbingly funny, Treefrog recounts his strategies of survival--killing rats, scavenging for discarded soda cans, washing in the snow. Between Nathan Walker and Treefrog stretch seventy years of ill-fated loves and unintended crimes.

In a triumph of plotting, the two stories fuse to form a tale of family, race, and redemption that is as bold and fabulous as New York City itself. In This Side of Brightness, Colum McCann confirms his place in the front ranks of modern writers.

About Colum McCann

Some authors have such busy bios that they are just exhausting to even read. Colum McCann is one such author. He was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1965 and began his writing career at The Irish Press. In every sense, McCann is considered to be an international artist. He has crossed the United States by bicycle, he has worked with a juvenile delinquent wilderness camp in Texas, and spent a year and a half in Japan with his wife Allison. His novels are reflective of his world travels and his many awards. He literally receives awards for his work from being a member of the American Academy of the Arts to election to the Irish Arts Academy.........winning a 2010 Best Novel Award in China to an Oscar nomination in the USA. He has won awards for his novels everywhere in between.

McCann received his Oscar nomination for his short film, "Everything in this Country Must", directed by Gary McKendry. His novel, "Let the Great World Spin", has had it's film rights purchased by J. J. Abrams, who was the creator of "Lost". McCann co-founded the global charity "Narrative 4", which brings together challenged youth from various places in the world to exchange their stories. The hope is that these youth will go back to help make changes in their respective communities.

McCann's works include: Let the Great World Spin, Thirteen Ways of Looking, Letters to a Young Writer, and his newest, Apeirogon. They are among his seven novels and three collections of stories which have been published.

To quote McMann, "I believe in the democracy of story-telling.... I love the fact that our stories can cross all sorts of borders and boundaries........being able to tell a story or listen to a story is the only thing that can trump life itself". McCann lives in New York with his wife Allison and their three children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Angela M on December 11, 2018

It will be difficult to think about the New York City subway system without thinking about this book. I have ridden the subway on occasional trips to NYC and the next time I do I will be definitely be thinking about its history and about these characters, those who built the tunnels and those who li......more

Goodreads review by Paltia on October 11, 2019

This story opens with the homeless man Treefrog throwing bricks. He has seen a bird, a crane he thinks, that is frozen in the river. Will he set it free and afford it another chance at flight? This, for me, was the essence of the book. Men going underground to dig a tunnel and rising to return to th......more

Goodreads review by Roger on December 19, 2017

"Our Resurrections Aren't What They Used To Be" It was not always so, but recently, I have come to like Colum McCann a lot. His TransAtlantic came high on my Top Ten of 2013, and Thirteen Ways of Looking figured equally on my 2015 list. Both books are built in sections: TransAtlantic is about......more

Goodreads review by Vladys on November 22, 2020

This is the first time I sit down with Colum McCann for a good long chat and it won't be the last. 'This Side of Brightness' certainly implies the dark side, the side that does not glitter and shine, the side hidden from view that most of us would rather avoid looking at in real life. It's a story o......more

Goodreads review by Colleen on September 16, 2011

I scoff when I hear people say, "I wish I had time to read!" My reading time is at 5:30 in the morning, when I am doing my cardio, rocking out to my music, and trying to balance my book open on those cheap little plastic book "thingys". I have sensed a pattern recently when I listen to an old song f......more