This Side of Brightness

by Colum McCann

Genres: Family Life; Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An international best-seller, Colum McCann's powerful novel was heralded as a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book. This Side of Brightness is a New York story, but it is set in a part of the great city few have ever seen. In 1916, a crew of men toil below the East River. These "sandhogs" dig the tunnel for trains that will connect Brooklyn to Manhattan. When one of the men dies in an explosion, coworker Nathan Walker begins to care for his widow and child. Now, 50 years later, their grandson is part of a vagrant community that lives in the sandhog shafts. Deranged and derelict, Clarence Walker is looking for a way to recapture a connection to his past. Moving back and forth between Nathan's careful world and Clarence's hallucinatory one, This Side of Brightness builds to a surprising redemption. Peter Jay Fernandez's narration captures the muscular prose and haunting images of this remarkable work.

Release date: June 25, 2013

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Print pages: 304