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The most mature work yet from National Book Award-winner and incomparable storyteller Colum McCann, TransAtlantic (Random House) is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year.
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Publisher Comments:
With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. As the narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, Collum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
Review:
"Irish writer McCann's first novel is a powerful, sometimes mesmerizing commentary on the nature of family and identity, memory and loss. The story opens with 23-year-old narrator Conor Lyons, just returned to Ireland after a five-year trip abroad, spying on his father fly-fishing in a polluted river. The narrative goes on to detail the young man's week-long visit home, a sojourn that proves important primarily in how it relates to, and evokes, the past — beginning with a reconstruction of the father's life as a photographer and adventurer wandering first through war-wracked Spain and then through Mexico, where he meets and marries Conor's mother. The couple moves to the U.S. and on to Ireland, where the narrator is born. Conor's parents have a turbulent marriage, ending in the mother's mysterious disappearance when Conor is 12; it was to retrace his parents' travels, hoping to find his missing mother, that Conor left his homeland. Focusing on remembrance, McCann links events by mood as much as by date, employing prose of a poetic logic and musical cadence that binds transitions of character, time and place into a cogent melody and pattern. Toward novel's end, we begin to see that Conor's search for his mother in the territory of the past is as futile as his father's quest for a giant fish in a dead river. In a moving climax, the author illustrates that it is the quest for, rather than the attainment of, personal grails that defines and redeems us as individuals." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Powerful... wistful and gracefully shadowed... The author has a keen eye and ear; his language is full of sparkling poetry and images." Scott Veale, The New York Times Book Review
"McCann... has unusual control over his material... McCann's take on the New World is fresh and often amusing, but what we remember most is the poignancy." Michael Harris, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review:
"An arresting new voice from out of Ireland, at once deep and dazzling." Edna O'Brien
Synopsis:
With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. As the narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, Collum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
Synopsis:
With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. As the narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, Collum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
Colum McCann was born in Dublin in 1965. He has worked as a journalist, ranch hand, and teacher. Among the honors his fiction has received are the Hennessy Award for Irish Literature and the Rooney Prize. His other books include Fishing the Sloe-Black River and Dancer.
With only unreliable memories and scraps of photographs to guide him, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his fathera rootless photographeras he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. The narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, creating a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
"Powerful . . . wistful and gracefully shadowed . . . The author has a keen eye and ear; his language is full of sparkling poetry and images."Scott Veale, The New York Times Book Review
"Positively vibrates . . . consistently engaging . . . remarkably beautiful."Peggy O'Brien, The Boston Sunday Globe
"McCann . . . has unusual control over his material . . . McCann's take on the New World is fresh and often amusing, but what we remember most is the poignancy."Michael Harris, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"An arresting new voice from out of Ireland, at once deep and dazzling."Edna O'Brien
Colum McCann was born in Dublin in 1965. He has worked as a journalist, ranch hand and teacher. Among the honors his fiction has received are the Hennessy Award for Irish Literature and the Rooney Prize. His new book, a collection of stories, is Fishing the Sloe-Black River. He currently lives in New York.
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Irish writer McCann's first novel is a powerful, sometimes mesmerizing commentary on the nature of family and identity, memory and loss. The story opens with 23-year-old narrator Conor Lyons, just returned to Ireland after a five-year trip abroad, spying on his father fly-fishing in a polluted river. The narrative goes on to detail the young man's week-long visit home, a sojourn that proves important primarily in how it relates to, and evokes, the past — beginning with a reconstruction of the father's life as a photographer and adventurer wandering first through war-wracked Spain and then through Mexico, where he meets and marries Conor's mother. The couple moves to the U.S. and on to Ireland, where the narrator is born. Conor's parents have a turbulent marriage, ending in the mother's mysterious disappearance when Conor is 12; it was to retrace his parents' travels, hoping to find his missing mother, that Conor left his homeland. Focusing on remembrance, McCann links events by mood as much as by date, employing prose of a poetic logic and musical cadence that binds transitions of character, time and place into a cogent melody and pattern. Toward novel's end, we begin to see that Conor's search for his mother in the territory of the past is as futile as his father's quest for a giant fish in a dead river. In a moving climax, the author illustrates that it is the quest for, rather than the attainment of, personal grails that defines and redeems us as individuals." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review"
by Scott Veale, The New York Times Book Review,
"Powerful... wistful and gracefully shadowed... The author has a keen eye and ear; his language is full of sparkling poetry and images."
"Review"
by Peggy O'Brien, Boston Sunday Globe,
"Positively vibrates... consistently engaging... remarkably beautiful."
"Review"
by Michael Harris, Los Angeles Times Book Review,
"McCann... has unusual control over his material... McCann's take on the New World is fresh and often amusing, but what we remember most is the poignancy."
"Review"
by Edna O'Brien,
"An arresting new voice from out of Ireland, at once deep and dazzling."
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. As the narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, Collum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
"Synopsis"
by Macmillan,
With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. As the narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, Collum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
Colum McCann was born in Dublin in 1965. He has worked as a journalist, ranch hand, and teacher. Among the honors his fiction has received are the Hennessy Award for Irish Literature and the Rooney Prize. His other books include Fishing the Sloe-Black River and Dancer.
With only unreliable memories and scraps of photographs to guide him, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his fathera rootless photographeras he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. The narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, creating a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.
"Powerful . . . wistful and gracefully shadowed . . . The author has a keen eye and ear; his language is full of sparkling poetry and images."Scott Veale, The New York Times Book Review
"Positively vibrates . . . consistently engaging . . . remarkably beautiful."Peggy O'Brien, The Boston Sunday Globe
"McCann . . . has unusual control over his material . . . McCann's take on the New World is fresh and often amusing, but what we remember most is the poignancy."Michael Harris, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"An arresting new voice from out of Ireland, at once deep and dazzling."Edna O'Brien
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