I was very happy to win a copy of TransAtlantic from Goodreads in return for an honest review. I had been looking forward to this novel for some time. As I have mentioned before, I tend to be very picky about historical fiction -- an occupational hazard for some historians. I want engaging style as well as good research, and I sometimes have difficulty focusing on the characters and the plot instead of historical details. I also tend to shudder at some writers' tendency to name drop as many famo...

Eight years, yes, eight years ago I purchased this book and it has been sitting looking at me from my library shelf all that time. I have read many other books and yet this book kept waiting for me to pick it up. Finally I did and I cannot figure out what took me so long. This is a marvelous work by Colum McCann and one that is divided into 3 sections. The first section takes a look at three different trips from America to Ireland. The first by aviators in 1919, the two gentlemen that were firs

This was enchanting to me. Three immersions in historical events and people that involve a crossing of the Atlantic between Ireland and North America. They happen to be male: two British airmen making the first crossing after World War 1; Frederick Douglass on a speaking tour of Ireland in 1845, and the former Maine Senator, George Mitchell, helping negotiate the Northern Ireland peace accord between 1995 and-1998. These disparate events have links though time by three generations of fictional w...

This review is going to be mostly about me.Surprise!Colum McCann is an Irish writer who in 2009 wrote that book about Philippe Petit, which turns out to have been as much about Philippe Petit as, say, To Kill a Mockingbird is about Boo Radley. The book merely uses Petit’s performance art as an anchoring point around which the book’s different stories of life in 1970s New York City are tethered. And in spite of the fact that the short story form is not generally my bag, I actually found it surpri...

The weight of words, and the appreciation of the meaning they bear.  The ironies of life, and the small comforts.  Where the 'intrusion of the ordinary' plays out in the 'miracle of the actual'.  Threads from four generations of women are taken up and braided together to form a plaited whole.  'The conspiracy of women.  We are in it together, make no mistake.'I feared the subject matter was not going to hold my interest, but the writing itself had me hooked before I could do anything about it. I...

When I was in graduate school, I wrote a paper on women's memoirs. One of the points that kept popping up in research is that, historically, memoirs were only written by Important People and, historically, Important People only included men. The result is that we often have to use less direct methods to discern what life was like for the women: unless we can read their diaries, letters and the like, the only stories we are left with have been filtered through men's lenses and only reflect the sm...

$1.99 on Kindle! Real Rating: 4.9* of fiveThe Publisher Says: National Book Award-winning novelist Colum McCann delivers his most ambitious and beautiful novel yet, tying together a series of narratives that span 150 years and two continents in an outstanding act of literary bravura.In 1845 a black American slave lands in Ireland to champion ideas of democracy and freedom, only to find a famine unfurling at his feet. In 1919, two brave young airmen emerge from the carnage of World War

As in LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, McCann's new novel begins with a real event in the air, and uses the opening narrative as a camera lens, tilting this way and that and keeping us off balance while images assemble to create a defining scene. British aviators John Alcock and Arthur (Teddy) Whitten Brown are up in the air in their WW 1 Vickers Vimy at the start of this tale, the pair who made the historical transatlantic journey from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919. It could be said that the novel b...

Colum McCann is a talented writer. He can say in six words what most people can't say in 60. I really enjoyed this, his latest novel.First of all, he has a way of making me interested in topics in which I had little or no interest prior. The first transatlantic flight, for instance. Sure, it's useful to know when it happened, and who accomplished it, but did I really care? Nah. Enter Colum McCann. In a few paragraphs, you'll feel as though you understand the essence of who those two pilots are.

I delved right into this one without going back and reading the summary description on GR. I stopped halfway through because I was confused. Three narratives regarding three different men that didn't seem to connect. Once I went back and read the summary it all came together. The first half is comprised of more historical writing based on famous men including Frederick Douglass. The second half weaves a fictional narrative back through these three men's lives. One woman- Lily Duggan, and her des...

Men of history make up the beginning chapters, and then four generations  of fictional women, their stories woven into a beautiful braid,  complete it.  Indeed, I felt a part of their story even if I am not Irish.  It has a strong relevance to Ireland's history, while linking it to America's as well; and McCann's handling of the female voice was expert. I have to admit to a general confusion throughout my reading, due to the time shifts mostly, and trying to keep track of which female we were on...

The world that we inhabit is a small place, and that has been as evident as ever in 2020. The ability to travel large distances in a short amount of time can be both a blessing and a curse. With the click of a button aided by technological applications, a person can talk to those on the other side of the world, not having to leave one’s house. One hundred years ago, the idea of traveling large distances in a short matter of time was still in its infancy. Crossing oceans by steamship or newly cre...

Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part of the story, and the wonderful characters that this novel contains. McCann has the knack of illuminating the everyday things of a person's life, hidden pride, glowing praise, love for country family and children. Everyday items, inconsequential things assume a meaning that often in apparent only in hindsight. Taking real historical characters and mi...

I can understand why this book's rating is on the high side, and that's because as "artists" such as James Joyce, Jackson Pollock, John Cage, and pretty much everyone who's ever had a film in the Sundance festival demonstrate, there are a lot--a LOT--of people who can't tell the difference between high art and pretentious nonsense.Reading this book (and I really tried, but after just over 100 pages, I just couldn't take it anymore) is painfully like being the designated driver on karaoke night a...

Finished this one... but just barely, and only because it was for book club. This felt more like a book of short stories, with the last one just barely pulling them all together. It felt contrived and was quite frankly a bit confusing. In the last section I was still not quite sure who the lady was and what all the fuss was about the letter. Due to the "short story" feel of this book there is little to no character or plot development, which I found very problematic. I have also decided that I c...

Close your eyes and picture me smiling. That is me after finishing this book. I was so very satisfied, pleased, happy. I think this book is fantastic. McCann has perfect dialogs, be they set centuries earlier or two years ago. His books do demand that you pay close attention, but they deliver a message that is worth the reader's effort. He skillfully interweaves historical events into fiction. His characters come alive. Every single sentence has a purpose. His ability to put the reader in anothe...

Honestly, I struggled a little to finish this. The writing is beautifully crafted and I found the first two sections (Alcock & Brown's transatlantic flight and Frederic Douglass's visit to Famine-plagued Ireland) engaging, but after that the book lost its way. The third (Senator Mitchell/Good Friday Agreement) section lacked resonance somehow; it felt like an exercise, albeit one expertly pulled off.I understand that McCann isn't that interested in plot but I wanted more to hold this together, m...

Another triumph from the gifted story-teller Colum McCann. In TransAtlantic, he deftly weaves a tale of family, courage, home and hope using historically significant events as his key ingredients. For the first third of the novel, I couldn’t figure out how he would tie together the first transatlantic flight, Frederick Douglas’ tour of Ireland and the Good Friday Peace Accords, but he does it masterfully. I was transfixed by the individuals and the larger themes.McCann is not an easy read. Like

I did not finish this book.I do not want to finish this book.I don't know, maybe it's just me but I found the writing to be very choppy, staccato-like.Each time I started reading I just couldn't get into it. The writing didn't flow smoothly and I found myself reading lines over and over again. It wasn't enjoyable so I just returned this book to the library.C'est la vie.

 Our Stories Will Outlast Us It is largely coincidental, but this was a book that seemed almost to have been written for me personally at thst particular moment in time.* But I am also convinced that this magnificent achievement should appeal to anyone whose expectations of a novel are flexible enough to embrace what is really a strikingly original structure. I enjoyed a lot of the individual sections in McCann's National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, but did not feel that they he...