“Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann was the National Book Award winner for 2009 and one of the best books I have read in a long, long time. McCann, whose father was actually in the World Trade Center and escaped on 9/11, wanted to write a book that would help him deal with the tragedy by framing New York in a different perspective. To do this, he chose an unusual way and set the book in 1974 with interwoven characters from literally all walks of life.

The language and sentences in “Let the Great World Spin” are so good that I am somewhat hesitant about my own ability to express the enjoyment I had while reading the novel. “Let the Great World Spin” was inspired by the true story of the man in “Man on a Wire”. The characters vary from artists, to priests, to prostitutes, to women from high society and are all loosely connected through the man on the wire, who is not that pivotal to the story in the end, but serves as a reminder throughout the book about what happened later to the Twin Towers.

I admired the way each character rang true to their social station without being made into mere cariacatures and the way in which the characters interacted with each other; for example, a rich woman living on Park Place who is lonely for friendship, offers to “pay” a black woman to stay with her for a short time to help her with her loneliness. The black woman is so offended by this offer that she immediately leaves, but later forges a friendship with the rich woman while managing to joke about the offer.

The novel is not without a great share of tragedies, most of which center on the lives of the prostitutes in the story and their relationship to the Irish immigrants they be-friend; however, it is not a depressing book to read. Part of the appeal of how “Let the Great World Spin” is how the book concentrates on many of the conflicts we all face internally regarding difficult subjects to tackle such as race, lust, and the differences between classes of people.  

The author also fills the pages with true-life references from 1974, including the resignation of Richard Nixon and of course, the man on the wire.

Again, if you have time to read a book of fiction this year, I can’t recommend “Let the Great World Spin” highly enough.