This Side of Brightness : A Novel (Paperback)

from oldblack

Although it seems to finish on a somewhat optimistic note, for me this is essentially a very dark novel about the breakdown of family relationships and slide into poverty, homelessness and drugs. I didn't fully understand the reason behind the behaviour which ultimately destroyed this family, but...

from chrisblocker

Colum McCann is the newest addition to my list of authors whose bibliography I'd like to read in its entirety. This Side of Brightness seemed a good choice: I prefer to start with the author's earlier works, I had easy accessibility to a copy, and the blurb for the novel sounded right up my alley...

from richardderus

How delightful it is to go back and fill in the high spots in a favorite author's early career. This book, published in 1998, was the third published book by McCann, and showed that his command of language was equal to his command of storytelling. He's a winner of the National Book Award now, but...

from LynnB

This was an extraordinary book. It tells the story of the sandhogs who dug the underwater subway tunnels in New York in the early 1900s, and the homeless people who live in those tunnels today. The bringing together of the two stories is powerful. This is the story of three generations of the Wal...

from wiltwhatman

Julian Gough recently posted enquiring about the parlous state of Modern Oioris Fiction, pointing to the pre-eminence of rural memoirs, Catholic Priests, and 1950's small town Irish melodrama as the current peak our contemporary crop of scribblers can mount. McCann is an exception. One of Irelan...