Let the Great World Spin

A Novel

By: Colum McCann

Narrated by: Richard Poe, Gerard Doyle, Carol Monda, Johanna Parker, Ramon De Ocampo

Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • Colum McCann’s beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire stunt, which is also depicted in the film The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt

In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people.

Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.

Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.”

A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.

©2009 Colum McCann (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and it’s a damned lot of fun to read, too. Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York. There’s so much passion and humor and pure lifeforce on every page of Let the Great World Spin that you’ll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed.”—Dave Eggers

“In his own gritty and lyrical voice, Colum McCann has lifted up a handful of souls to the light in this big-hearted, adroit and probing novel, and brought forth a spectrum of the painful, the beautiful and the unexpected.”—Amy Bloom

“Every character grabs you by the throat and makes you care. McCann’s dazzling polyphony walks the high wire and succeeds triumphantly.”—Emma Donoghue, author of Room

What????

Slow starter..kind of boring..beautiful writing, but depressing and too much foul language for my taste.

Great book and great production

The book is an extraordinary tale of loss and hope circling around the famous cable walk between the WTC towers in the 70s.

I recommend it extensively.

Wasn’t an enjoyable story

Narration was good. Content for me wasn’t . It was recommended but disappointed and not easy to relate to . A rough story

All the beautiful, sad and traffic stories spiral

Loved iy. All of the stories spiral out from this one moment in time. I have never heard a more beautifully produce audible book. All the wonderful characters McCann has written somehow come to life and stay with you for days. Just do yourself a favor and get this now.

An amazing listen!

I thoroughly enjoyed this listen. The way the lives of so many different people interact whether knowingly or not, spinning around and through each other.
I didn’t want it to end.

Loved it.

The intertwining stories worked for me. It really showed how all of us, in our own way, deal with our lives and how we should not be judgmental.
I also loved hearing the Irish brogue in this audible.

A Masterpiece read by master story tellers...

I loved having this work of art read to me and relive it without straining my eyes..and realize the things I missed when I read it in 2009
it deserved The Pulitzer as we as the other awards it received that year.

This what a great novel feels like

I picked it up by chance and eventually decided to give it a chance, a New York novel by an Irish transplant that I never heard of before. it didn't take long before McCann had pulled me in, and there was no way to let go. It's pure magic, reminding me of Dickens and Tolstoy. I'm amazed and mystified by the author's emotional depth and broad experience and knowledge. How was it possible for him to enter so many lives in such different groups and across generations?

Expected better I guess

I guess I expected it to be more engrossing/interesting. Was a bit boring at parts and not all the characters intertwined (namely the Tagger), which is what I was waiting for the whole time. Some of the narrators were tough to listen to as well. Except Richard Poe- he is epic. I did not feel that the end pulled it all together.

Nnneeeww reviewwwee

Rrrrrr yyyyyy ooooo pppppp ttttt eeeee gggggg mmmmmmm nnnnnnnnn ssss www nnn ooo pppp ccc.