This Side of Brightness: A Novel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.87 (558 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0805054529 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-05-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Wonderful Work Colum McCann has written a beautiful book with his work, "This Side of Brightness". Beautiful in this case may seem odd, but I would use the word here as I would use it to describe a work by John Steinbeck. Human nature and behavior often has trouble rising above decent much less beautiful, but a talented writer can bring painful lives and experiences . "Tunnels, Tragedies Terrific Tales" according to Savvy-Suz. Nathan Walker and his family are at the center of this well constructed story of hope, despair, poverty, racism and ultimately the possibility of redemption.McCann masterfully portrays a realistic story of the lives of the men known as "Sandhogs" and the dangerous nature of their job digging tunnels under New York City.Mixing history with metaphor and . Excellent Val A brilliant book. McCabe is a masterful storyteller and has a gift for narration that is rarely surpassed by others. I highly recommend this book.
Then an explosion in one of the tunnels literally blows Walker and three other men up through the earth and into the East River. Walker survives, but his best friend Con O'Leary is never found. Two characters dominate Colum McCann's narrative: Treefrog, a homeless man with a dark and shameful secret, and Nathan Walker, a black man who came north in the early years of the century to work as a "sandhog," digging the subway tunnels beneath Manhattan. This Side of Brightness weaves historical fact with fictional truth, creating a remarkable tale of death, racism, homelessness--and yes, love--spanning four generations. But madness has brought Treefrog out of the light and back to the tunnels that Walker helped
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. Years later, Treefrog, a homeless man driven below by a shameful secret, ures a punishing winter in his subway nest. 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. Between Nathan Walker and Treefrog stretch seventy years of ill-fated loves and uninted crimes. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the tunnel that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In This Side of Brightness, Colum McCann confirms his place in the front ranks of modern writers.. 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. 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