title: Let the Great World Spin: A Novel
author:  Colum McCann 
description: This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and its a damned lot of fun to read, too. Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York. Theres so much passion and humor and pure lifeforce on every page of <i>Let the Great World Spin</i> that youll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed.<b>Dave Eggers</b><i><br /> </i><br /> 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.<b>Amy Bloom</b><br /><br /> Every character grabs you by the throat and makes you care. McCanns dazzling polyphony walks the high wire and succeeds triumphantly.<b>Emma Donoghue, author of <i>Room</i></b><br /><br /> What a book! Complex and captivating . . . a very sensual novel.<b>John Boyne, author of <i>The Boy in the Striped Pajamas</i><br /> </b><br /> Now I worry about Colum McCann. What is he going to do after this blockbuster groundbreaking heartbreaking symphony of a novel? No novelist writing of New York has climbed higher, dived deeper.<b>Frank McCourt, author of <i>Angelas Ashes</i></b><br /><br /> With Philippe Petits breathless 1974 tightrope walk between the uncompleted WTC towers at its axis, Colum McCannoffers us a lyrical cycloramic high-low portrait of New York Cityin its days of burning; Park Avenue matrons, Bronx junkies, Center Street judges, downtown artists and their uptown subway-tagging brethren, street priests, weary cops, wearier hookers, grieving mothers of an Asian war freshly put to bed; a masterful chorus of voices all obliviously connected by the most ephemeral vision; a pin-dot of a man walking on air 110 stories above their heads.<b>Richard Price, author of <i>Lush Life</i></b><i><br /><br /> </i>Stunning . . . [an] elegiac glimpse of hope . . . Its a novel rooted firmly in time and place. It vividly captures New York at its worst and best. But it transcends all that. In the end, its a novel about familiesthe ones were born into and the ones we make for ourselves.<b><i>USA Today</i></b><br /><br /> The first great 9/11 novel . . .<i></i>It is a pre-9/11 novel that delivers the sense that so many of the 9/11 novels have missed: We are all dancing on the wire of history, and even on solid ground we breathe the thinnest of air.<b></b><i><b>Esquire</b><br /><br /> </i>Mesmerizing . . . a Joycean look at the lives of New Yorkers changed by a single act on a single day . . . Colum McCanns marvelously rich novel . . . weaves a portrait of a city and a moment, dizzyingly satisfying to read and difficult to put down.<b><i>The</i></b><i><b>Seattle Times</b><br /> </i><br /> Vibrantly whole . . . With a series of spare, gorgeously wrought vignettes, Colum McCann brings 1970s New York to life. . . . And as always, McCanns heart-stoppingly simple descriptions wow.<b></b><i><b>Entertainment Weekly</b><br /><br /> </i>An act of pure bravado, dizzying proof that to keep your balance you need to know how to fall.<b><i>O: The Oprah Magazine</i></b><br /><br /> The Great New York Novel. With echoes of Wolfe, Doctorow, and DeLillo, Colum McCanns mesmerizing <i>Let the Great World Spin</i> is a prophetic portrait of New York City in the summer of 1974. . . . A fine introduction to a major talent. It is one of the years best novels.<b>Taylor Antrim, <i>The Daily Beast</i></b><br /><br /> [McCann] both resurrects and redeems the horrors of Sept. 11, creating a metaphorical landscape of human endurance in the face of unspeakable tragedy. . . . This is McCannsgift, finding grace in grief and magic in the mundane.<b><i>San Francisco Chronicle</i></b><br /><br />A shimmering, shattering novel. In McCanns wise and elegiac novel of origins and consequences, each of his finely drawn, unexpectedly connected characters balances above an abyss, evincing great courage with every step.<b><i>Booklist </i>(<i>s</i>tarred review)</b><br /><br /> If William Butler Yeats and Allen Ginsberg had written a novel together, it would be this sad, this deep, this urban, this manic and this highly charged. . . . McCanns powerhis language, his human understanding, his visionholds us in an embrace as encompassing as the great world itself.<b><i>TheBuffalo News</i></b><br /><br /> Beautiful, heady . . . As worn down as McCannscharacters are, they each struggle heroically against lifes downward pull, and thats what makes the novel so powerfully uplifting.<b><i>Richmond Times-Dispatch</i> </b><br /><br /> Seductive [with a] propulsive pace . . . This is a New York teeming with leathery men and vicious beauties. The city itself is a stalled machine. People dont arrive here; they crawl into it. McCanns style is lyrical and sharp, as he expertly weaves together the lives of a handful of seemingly disparate characters.<b><i>The Oregonian</i></b><br /><br /> Sprawling, lyrical . . . McCann [is a] novelist you should know a lot more about.<b><i>New York</i></b><i><br /> </i><br /><br /><br /><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>
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  Advance Reader’s Copy — Not for Sale
  
  
  **TRANSATLANTIC**
  
  
  _A Novel_
  
  
  Colum McCann
  
  
  Random House
  
  
  This is an uncorrected eBook file.
  
  
  Please do not quote for publication
  
  
  until you check your copy against the finished book.
  
  
  Tentative On-Sale Date: June 4, 2013
  
  
  Tentative Publication Month: June 2013
  
  
  Tentative Print Price: $27.00
  
  
  Tentative eBook Price: $13.99
  
  
  Please note that books will not be available in stores
  
  
  until the above on-sale date.
  
  
  All reviews should be scheduled to run after that date.
  
  
  Publicity Contact:
  
  
  Random House Publicity
  
  
  (212) 572-2301
  
  
  [www.atrandom.com](http://www.atrandom.com)
  
  
  Random House
  
  
  An imprint of the Random House Publishing Group
  
  
  1745 Broadway • New York, NY • 10019
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By Colum McCann
  
  
  Transatlantic
  
  
  Let the Great World Spin
  
  
  Zoli
  
  
  Dancer
  
  
  Everything in This Country Must
  
  
  This Side of Brightness
  
  
  Songdogs
  
  
  Fishing the Sloe-Black Ri