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TransAtlantic  By  cover art

TransAtlantic

By: Colum McCann
Narrated by: Geraldine Hughes
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Publisher's summary

New York Times best-seller. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus Review.

In the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called "an emotional tour de force". Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined.

Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators - Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown - set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War.

Dublin, 1845 and ’46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause - despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave.

New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland’s notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion.

These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.

The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year.

Praise for TransAtlantic:

“A dazzlingly talented author’s latest high-wire act.... Reminiscent of the finest work of Michael Ondaatje and Michael Cunningham, TransAtlantic is Colum McCann’s most penetrating novel yet.” (O: The Oprah Magazine)

©2013 Colum McCann (P)2013 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"This novel is beautifully hypnotic in its movements, from the grand (between two continents, across three centuries) to the most subtle. Silkily threading together public events and private feelings, TransAtlantic says no to death with every line." (Emma Donoghue)

"A masterful and profoundly moving novel that employs exquisite language to explore the limits of language and the tricks of memory...epic in ambition...audacious in format." (Kirkus Reviews)

"A beautiful writer... This is what interests McCann: lives made amid and despite violence; the hidden braids of places, times, and people; the way the old days ‘arrive back in the oddest ways.’" (Publishers Weekly)

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What listeners say about TransAtlantic

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Preferred Let The Great World Spin

Found a lot of this story compelling but for me it didn’t have the magic of Let The Great World Spin. The stories had me of the chance encounter / different viewpoints on a broader theme. I recognize that McCann was working with a different theme but I would start with the other if you are choosing between the two.

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2 people found this helpful

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beautifully written. artfully narrated

i really enjoyed this book. The style of telling three separate stories which eventually weave together is very compelling. The narrator artful in her performance of the various accents capturing ages, sex, economic situation in her dialects. The story completely captured me throughout.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good narrator miscast

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would probably recommend reading this book with your eyes, rather than listening to the audiobook.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Geraldine Hughes does have a beautiful voice for narration, but just didn't fit the demands of this book, in my opinion. She reads with a breathless urgency that kind of numbed me to variations in the suspense level. I found myself tuning out, then backtracking when I realized something dramatic had occurred. Hughes was in her element during the last segment of the book, however.(No spoilers here!)The story was very character-driven, which I usually enjoy. Again I blame the narration because I didn't get a sense of the various characters through Hughes's interpretation. The two pilots in the first section sounded like one guy, or maybe one woman with a lovely Irish accent.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book, Very Depressing

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Only if the friend has a high tolerance for unremitting depression

What did you like best about this story?

Vignettes of history. I really liked the portion of the peace negotiations.

Have you listened to any of Geraldine Hughes’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

She is a fine narrator

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I read from the beginning to Chapter 7 and quit. I could not take ne more death of a child. The thought of the Irish immigrant woman losing so much finished me with the book.

Any additional comments?

The author is talented and I loved his first book. This one ground my heart. Read only if you are strong.

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4 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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McCann probes the emotive core of our human soul

Colum McCann probes the emotive core of our human soul in TransAtlantic. He structures the novel in interlocking relative biographies, e.g., Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, but also applied other authors thereafter. This plot structure works masterfully as he weaves his story and develops his characters. His style is precise and economic, yet sensitive and vividly luscious. His words are weighty. He hefts them and aligns them in original and fresh sequences bringing the characters and the story to life, and perspectives of life. As to the Audible, Geraldine Hughes performs the novel wonderfully.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyed even more the second time I listened

Fabulous inter-generational fictional tale, sprinkled with nonfictional characters and events; terrific use of language
Beautiful, subtle use of metaphors; occasional use of words that sent me to my online dictionary (e.g., endicia).
In this story, Colum McCann creates vibrant, multi-dimensional women characters. Geraldine Hughes is the perfect narrator.

The story opens with British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown making the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919. Although mention of this event recurs at intervals throughout the tale, its importance is more as metaphor than as aviation history.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Atlantic crossings and interconnections

Where does TransAtlantic rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best books I've read this year. This is my first review ever and I am doing this for the first time because of the impact this book has had on me. I love how this book is about the characters' crossings back and forth between North America and Ireland and also how the characters' lives are interwoven within the context of actual historical events. It makes the characters seem all the more tangible -- as if they weren't already. McCann writes with such inventive use of metaphor I had to stop the audio every now and again just to absorb the words and the imagery they evoked. But this wasn't overdone -- thank goodness -- otherwise I'd still be listening to it!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Lottie's life seemed to span most of the book's 170+ years and linked together not only the beginning and end of the book but also both sides of the Atlantic. She captured just enough optimism to overcome some of the challenges experienced by her ancestors and her successors.

What about Geraldine Hughes’s performance did you like?

Her accent was just noticeable enough to feel authentic without encumbering the dialogue. She lent sensitivity to some of the more tragic and heartfelt moments in the book so that I felt the events without noticing the narration.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Many. That's what makes this such a great book. Whether its famine, slavery, the conflict in Northern Ireland, or the courage to cross the Atlantic in such a small plane. There are many such moments in this book that it makes you log onto Wikipedia just to get more information about these events.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Didn't hold together

Would you try another book from Colum McCann and/or Geraldine Hughes?

Yes, I do plan to read Let the Great World Spin

Would you ever listen to anything by Colum McCann again?

Not sure I would listen again. That could have been why it seemed so disjointed.

Which scene was your favorite?

Loved the story about Senator Mitchell.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Maybe.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Pure poetry!!!

What did you love best about TransAtlantic?

The language.

What did you like best about this story?

The interconnections between the characters and their times.

What about Geraldine Hughes’s performance did you like?

Perfection!

Who was the most memorable character of TransAtlantic and why?

Many were equally memorable.

Any additional comments?

I have enjoyed this more than any other audible book I have 'read'.

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Brilliant and beautiful

McCann is a genius, stories woven over great swaths of time that are at all times unfailingly human and frail and touching. and I couldn't think of a better narrator for it all.

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