Fiction

This Side of Brightness
by Colum McCann
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(hardback; 15.99 IRP / 23.50 USD)

"On the evening before the first snow fell, he saw a large bird frozen in the waters of the Hudson River. He knew it must have been a goose or a heron, but he decided that it was a crane. Its neck was tucked unders its wingpit and the head was submerged in the river. He peered down at the water's surface and imagined the ancient ornamental beak. The bird's legs were spread out and one wing was uncurled as if it had been attempting to fly through the ice.

"Treefrog found some bricks at the edge of the path that ran along the waterfront and he lifted them high and flung them down around the bird. The first brick bounced and skidded on the ice, but the second broke the surface and animated the crane for just a moment. The wings skipped minutely. The neck moved in a stiff, majestic arc and the head emerged from under the water, grey and bloated. Treefrog rained the bricks down with ferocious intent until the bird was free to move beyond the ice to where the river flowed." (from the novel)

Clarence Nathan Walker rules the air above New York City, one of an elite band of construction workers earning their kicks and high wages from the most dangerous job of all, walking the steel beams hundreds of feet above the street. Far below, a man called Treefrog haunts the tunnels that yawn underground like a city in themselves, rarely coming topside throughout one brutal winter of ice and snow. Between Clarence and Treefrog stretches a lifetime of experience, but in the space between the sky and the earth, their histories collide and a story unfolds. It is a story of love which begins with an accident so spectacular it becomes myth, and ends where it begins, in a tunnel below the river.

Daring and atmospheric, This Side of Brightness spans seventy years, from the days when men dug beneath the East River to build the subways of New York, to a time when those very tunnels became home to the city's lost and drifting. Time enough for one family to rise and fall, and rise again, their history inextricably linked to the history of the city, their stories full of hope and love and despair. With the unique magic of his words, Colum McCann has created a world within a world, a story rich with colour and sound and raw humanity.

Colum McCann was born in Dublin and divides his time between Dublin and New York City. He was awarded the 1994 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for his short story collection, Fishing the Sloe-Black River), and is the author of the highly-praised novel Songdogs which he is currently adapting for the screen.