TransAtlantic: A Novel

by Colum McCann

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS

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
 
“One of the greatest pleasures of TransAtlantic is how provisional it makes history feel, how intimate, and intensely real. . . . Here is the uncanny thing McCann finds again and again about the miraculous: that it is inseparable from the everyday.”—The Boston Globe
 
“Ingenious . . . The intricate connections [McCann] has crafted between the stories of his women and our men [seem] written in air, in water, and—given that his subject is the confluence of Irish and American history—in blood.”—Esquire
 
“Another sweeping, beautifully constructed tapestry of life . . . Reading McCann is a rare joy.”—The Seattle Times
 
“Entrancing . . . McCann folds his epic meticulously into this relatively slim volume like an accordion; each pleat holds music—elation and sorrow.”—The Denver Post

• ISBN10: 1400069599
• ISBN13: 9781400069590
• Publish Date: 4 June 2013 (first published 23 May 2013)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Random House USA Inc
• Format: Hardcover (Deckle Edge)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781400069590

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

The National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann comes an astonishing new novel, TransAtlantic. Through a series of narratives that span 150 years and two continents comes this magnificent and somewhat ambitious novel. From the first TransAtlantic flight from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland to the American senator crossing the ocean in search for lasting peace in Ireland, this is part fiction part historical literary achievement.

I’ve often struggled with the novels that are made up from a collection of short stories as well as the ones that blend fact and fiction. A Visit from the Goon Squad was a widely talked about book for having a chapter dedicated to a different person but I didn’t think much of it, while The Imperfectionists did the same thing a whole lot better. Now we have TransAtlantic, which I’m not sure if it was the fact that I read this while flying but this really stands out about the rest. Then you have these novels that draw a lot from history. A Treacherous Likeness was a disaster; Z: The Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald I thought missed too much of her later years; Burial Rites was the exception but only because it was such an obscure historical event I didn’t know about it. Yet TransAtlantic seems to be standing out above these novels as well.

The first chapter looks at the incredible story of the first flight across the Atlantic in 1919, an epic feat in human history by all accounts. I felt like Colum McCann handled this so masterfully that I wasn’t concerned about the historical facts, I was absorbed in the tension facing these two men as they battle against the odds to make it.

Yet this isn’t just about the history of flight across the Atlantic Ocean, this focuses a lot on Ireland. McCann is an Irish born author so you expect to see Irish history within this book but he is also coming from a journalist background and it really shows. This novel takes a look at slavery and conflict within Ireland making this an interesting look at the significance of TransAtlantic flight.

Colum McCann weaves a tapestry of rich and powerful short stories that lavish us with this literary piece. From the get go I felt drawn into the novel, the short sentences seem to keep me reading at such a fast pace. While I had to get off one plane and board another half way through this book, I was so sucked in I felt like asking the pilot to take the long way just so it wouldn’t interrupt my reading.

Key historical figures within TransAtlantic include Frederick Douglass, John Alcock and Teddy Brown and George Mitchell. The novel both encouraged me to learn more about these people and while giving me a new insight of both TransAtlantic flight and historical events within Ireland. On reflection I can pinpoint exactly what worked well and what didn’t, the different elements of this novel all seemed to work together to hide whatever flaws I was looking for.

TransAtlantic was both an addictive read and a stunning piece of literary fiction. While it wasn’t perfect, I’m not sure how to fault this book, I picked the right book for the right time and it was an enjoyable experience. I’ve not read Colum McCann before, in fact I hadn’t heard of him, but you can be sure I’ll be tracking more of his novels down.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/06/07/book-review-transatlantic/