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This Side of Brightness A Novel Colum McCann 9780312421977 Books

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This Side of Brightness A Novel Colum McCann 9780312421977 Books

There is a fascination/ revulsion compulsion that affected me deeply while reading this book. I was too enraptured to put it down, but too depressed to continue at times. This story is heartbreaking. It wrenched my insides as I felt what poverty and racism can do to lives in succession. I am not surprised to learn of the sandhogs since their story is so much part of New York's history. However, what did surprise me was the nature of McCalum's prose. It is not eloquent but it is elegant. I am a fan of Steinbeck, especially Grapes of Wrath and here McCalum's writing seems to echo Steinbeck's treatment of language. I bought this book because I immensely enjoyed McCalum's other novel Let the Great World Spin. I paid little of nothing for it and I am almost ashamed that this is so. I had to put the book down at several points because the poignancy of the story touched me almost painfully and I sought escape from its wounds. Growing up in Atlanta during the civil rights movement means, for me, the issues touched upon in the novel are part of my memory, however painful it is for me to recall. Although I was a small child, it made no sense to me that people with darker skins were treated with such disrespect. It still doesn't make sense but even then, to my young heart, it seemed uncharitable. I had friends that were black and we played together with such gusto and abandon that I never sensed that anything was wrong. I had some teachers that would try to separate us but this was always temporary and done almost without feeling, only halfheartedly. Children serve as an example to us all. Growing up in the Deep South with it's deep seated prejudices never impacted my own feelings regarding race. Thankfully, I had the wonderful presence of a black woman in my life to dissuade any impact negative talk might have had on my belief system. I learned that kindness, humor and gentleness wasn't limited to white skinned people and these lessons have served me all of my life. I consider myself race-blind and have brought my children up to believe the same. This is perhaps why I had to leave McCalum's book at several points in order to collect my thoughts, to relieve the burden those words placed on my once-young soul. I remember what prejudice was like and how it can eat away your heart. My young self could not imagine a world where my nanny was not treated with the same cordiality and respect as my parents. I adored, admired and loved her vehemently. All I learned about being a mother, came not from my own mother, who was a cold fish and should not have had children, but instead came from my nanny. I often wondered about her own teenaged children and how they fared while she was caring for my sister and I. All this was brought forward in my mind by McCalum and while I felt deeply Treefrog's poverty and regret, I sympathized most strongly with Walker and his family. I am reviewing the book because I felt I simply must express myself. This book is about loss, what we lose when we work our bodies to death, what we lose by giving ourselves to another person, what we lose by giving in to carnal desires. Clarence Nathan's resurrection still leaves questions. Has his guilt been subsumed by his loss? Have experiences taught him that loss can be expressed in self-destructive ways? That loss is something we all experience and that by virtue of that experience we grow as individuals. I am not as eloquent as some other reviewers, but I felt the passion in this novel. A passion I had to leave, for a time, and revisit as it was painful, in a grateful, wonderful way.


Tags : This Side of Brightness: A Novel [Colum McCann] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This Side of Brightness</i> by Colum McCann At the turn of the century, Nathan Walker comes to New York City to take the most dangerous job in the country. A sandhog,Colum McCann,This Side of Brightness: A Novel,Picador,0312421974,FIC014000,Historical,Historical fiction,Homeless persons,New York (N.Y.),Sandhogs,138003 Pic Metro TPC,ENGLISH HISTORICAL FICTION,FICTION Historical General,Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction-Historical,GENERAL,General Adult,Historical - General,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),United States

This Side of Brightness A Novel Colum McCann 9780312421977 Books Reviews

This is a beautiful book with more compassion and perspective than any other I can think of in recent history. It was a beautiful read that contains fascinating stories ranging from subway diggers to interracial families to subway dwellers to drug addicts to pedofiles. You will finish having empathy for every single one due to the incredible writing. I have already bought three more novels from this author because I am so impressed by the emotions he can bring out in me. You will not be able to put it down or forget about it.
Exquisite narrative, although the ending was predictable. McCann writes brilliant sentences, even in this early work. If you are looking for mystery, action, or suspense, read another author. McCann writes about the inner narratives of people in ways that wrap grace around your heart.
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 vivid language, we are taken into the bowels of the earth and then to the tops of skyscrapers with a powerfully written narrative.

McCann gives us people that we come to care about and empathize with as the harshness of their lives unfolds. Accidents happen, lives are upended and great sadness plays out with poetic sensitivity.

Nathan Walker is a man of great courage and sensibilities. He is a strong and gentle patriarch that you won't soon forget. McCann knows how to bring his characters to life and have the reader walk beside them.

In preparing for this novel, McCann went down to the tunnels four or five times a week.
He didn't pretend to be homeless; he slowly gained trust from many who lived in the tunnels. In an interview he said, "I met all sorts of people -- junkies, war veterans, people who'd recently been let out of mental asylums, others who had just lost their jobs. I was put in all sorts of different situations. Being Irish helped me - I was never seen as part of the established order, the system. I was outside."

How "the other half" lives shows how easily it could be any one of us.

Well worth the read!
Absolutely fascinating ... I had heard about the people who lived under the ground in nyc but this was an incredible way of talking about that life in the context of a novel ... An absolutely brilliant insight into those on the margins of all sorts of aspects of life be it homelessness race poverty or mental illness ... The setting of the story almost wholly underground adds to the pressure of the stress endured by the various characters ...I dearly wanted to put this book down on several occasions as it was so savage in its portrayal of certain scenes but I never could till I had read to the very last line
There is a fascination/ revulsion compulsion that affected me deeply while reading this book. I was too enraptured to put it down, but too depressed to continue at times. This story is heartbreaking. It wrenched my insides as I felt what poverty and racism can do to lives in succession. I am not surprised to learn of the sandhogs since their story is so much part of New York's history. However, what did surprise me was the nature of McCalum's prose. It is not eloquent but it is elegant. I am a fan of Steinbeck, especially Grapes of Wrath and here McCalum's writing seems to echo Steinbeck's treatment of language. I bought this book because I immensely enjoyed McCalum's other novel Let the Great World Spin. I paid little of nothing for it and I am almost ashamed that this is so. I had to put the book down at several points because the poignancy of the story touched me almost painfully and I sought escape from its wounds. Growing up in Atlanta during the civil rights movement means, for me, the issues touched upon in the novel are part of my memory, however painful it is for me to recall. Although I was a small child, it made no sense to me that people with darker skins were treated with such disrespect. It still doesn't make sense but even then, to my young heart, it seemed uncharitable. I had friends that were black and we played together with such gusto and abandon that I never sensed that anything was wrong. I had some teachers that would try to separate us but this was always temporary and done almost without feeling, only halfheartedly. Children serve as an example to us all. Growing up in the Deep South with it's deep seated prejudices never impacted my own feelings regarding race. Thankfully, I had the wonderful presence of a black woman in my life to dissuade any impact negative talk might have had on my belief system. I learned that kindness, humor and gentleness wasn't limited to white skinned people and these lessons have served me all of my life. I consider myself race-blind and have brought my children up to believe the same. This is perhaps why I had to leave McCalum's book at several points in order to collect my thoughts, to relieve the burden those words placed on my once-young soul. I remember what prejudice was like and how it can eat away your heart. My young self could not imagine a world where my nanny was not treated with the same cordiality and respect as my parents. I adored, admired and loved her vehemently. All I learned about being a mother, came not from my own mother, who was a cold fish and should not have had children, but instead came from my nanny. I often wondered about her own teenaged children and how they fared while she was caring for my sister and I. All this was brought forward in my mind by McCalum and while I felt deeply Treefrog's poverty and regret, I sympathized most strongly with Walker and his family. I am reviewing the book because I felt I simply must express myself. This book is about loss, what we lose when we work our bodies to death, what we lose by giving ourselves to another person, what we lose by giving in to carnal desires. Clarence Nathan's resurrection still leaves questions. Has his guilt been subsumed by his loss? Have experiences taught him that loss can be expressed in self-destructive ways? That loss is something we all experience and that by virtue of that experience we grow as individuals. I am not as eloquent as some other reviewers, but I felt the passion in this novel. A passion I had to leave, for a time, and revisit as it was painful, in a grateful, wonderful way.