From the National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, comes a novella and three stories of immediate power and grace
Colum McCann, originally from Dublin, Ireland, is the author of
six novels and three collections of stories. His most recent novel,
TransAtlantic, was longlisted for the Man Booker 2013, and his
previous novel, Let the Great World Spin, won the National Book
Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a New
York Times bestseller. His fiction has been published in
thirty-five languages. He lives in New York.
colummccann.com
A superbly crafted and deeply moving collection of
fiction…underscores [McCann’s] reputation as a contemporary
master
*Kirkus*
Separate and together, these four works prove McCann a master with
a poet’s ear, a psychologist’s understanding, and a humanitarian’s
conscience
*Publishers Weekly*
Quite simply one of the best, most sustained pieces of fiction I’ve
read in some time ... A novel of true resonance and power
*Independent on Transatlantic*
Beautifully hypnotic … Those who can't see the point of historical
novels will find their answer here
*Emma Donoghue, author of Room*
Expertly constructed ... The prose is poetically vivid
*Observer*
Colum McCann is a very gifted, charming writer; in full,
rhapsodic-onrush mode, he is hard to resist ... TransAtlantic is
deft, well crafted, and broad in its imaginative range
*Guardian*
Crime and violence shadow the accompanying stories, told from
viewpoints including those of a nun recalling the man who raped and
tortured her in South America decades earlier, and an author trying
to write about a female soldier in Afghanistan
*Observer*
Like all the best books, Colum McCann’s latest … is about time.
Over the course of a novella and three short stories he probes our
shifting relationship with it …It’s in the flawless opening
novella, which gives the collection its title, that McCann really
lets loose … Thirteen Ways of Looking is a detective story turned
inside out … “Sometimes it seems to me,” he says in a note at the
end, “that we are writing our lives in advance, but at other times
we can only ever look back.” In this superlative collection, which
surely ranks among his finest work, he manages to express both
possibilities at once
*Sunday Telegraph*
Such is McCann’s command of rhythm in this short spark that you
could open Thirteen Ways at any page and fall under its spell …
Rich with his trademark lyrical, melancholic, ever so ex-pat Irish
prose … It is going to resonate in your mulling head for days
*Big Issue*
I had been enjoying the fairground thrill of being willingly
rattled by the fictional menace and mortality in these pages that,
combined with the energy and playfulness of McCann’s writing, made
for good reading about bad things. Then the blow of the author’s
end note, with the spectre of reality (and autobiography) jostling
its way into the fiction I had just read. Now I was rattled in a
different way
*Independent*
A rich, poetic monologue, where memories, words and worlds collide
… You wouldn’t necessarily think that an account of a single day in
the life of a frail old man could be so entrancing … McCann, who
comes from Dublin, is an intensely literary writer, and his prose
thrums with echoes of Beckett, Yeats and Joyce … What emerges from
this rich, linguistic mix is a poignant and beautiful glimpse into
the end of a life
*Sunday Times*
Each character is cleanly drawn, each description rings true …
strange and remarkable … One of the strengths of McCann’s writing
is his ability to place himself, and so his reader, in another’s
body … surprising and moving … The story (Sh’khol) wonderfully
captures the exacting, awful mystery of love and the danger of
loss
*Guardian*
It is this idea, that reality trumps invention, which drives this
beautifully written … discerning collection from Colum McCann, in
which he breaks new ground in his brilliant literary career.
Reading these stories is pleasurable and stimulating on a range of
levels … The language is, as always with McCann, delightful. He
writes with a sure sense of rhythm, and he has an enviably agile
mastery of syntax … The author’s frank note at the back, informing
us of the link between real events and the fictional treatment, and
his further elaboration of this connection on his website, give to
the work an astonishing new dimension, distinguishing it from
almost any other fiction
*Irish Times*
Atmospheric, unsettling ... Thirteen Ways is a clever, slick but
movingly tender work, whose tone holds the attention from the start
... McCann’s ability to slow the pace of action while allowing his
prose to bubble and boil, heightens the febrile mood. And while
Thirteen Ways of Looking is unarguably bleak, it is also rich
*Herald*
McCann is wonderfully good at conjuring up both the judge’s present
frailties and bemusements and the vibrancy of his past … chronicled
with the author’s customary assurance and alertness to detail
**
McCann’s writing is elegant and ironic, sometimes absolutely
beautiful
*The Times*
A fine collection of novella and three stories, from a supremely
talented writer
*Sunday Times*
Colum McCann achieves great intimacy and poignancy with his shrewd,
fluent exploration of the mind’s recesses … Although each is
distinct, all four stories are crafted from the same lyrical prose
in which every longing, fear and regret is deeply felt
*Financial Times*
In McCann’s latest book, Thirteen Ways of Looking, worlds collide:
past and present, fiction and non-fiction, seeing and believing, It
comprises one brilliantly polished novella and three short stories
and is among McCann’s finest ... Made in Manhattan but its roots
like that of the city and the author spread deep and wide
*RTE Guide*
Two other novellas of note: Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum
McCann about a crime, and the ways of looking, as we follow a
distinguished old man up to the moment of his death
*Independent*
As fine as anything McCann has written ... The judge’s life is
wonderfully evoked and the story also succeeds as a thriller in
which surveillance plays a prominent role. Three short stories
complete the book, the last a powerful tale of an elderly nun who
confronts the now respectable diplomat who raped and tortured her
decades earlier
*Irish Times*
Each character is cleanly drawn, each description rings true … One
of McCann’s strengths is his ability to place himself, and so his
reader, in another body
*Guardian*
Excellent collection … The old judge’s life is richly and
convincingly evoked, and the events that lead to his death are
unravelled with masterful dramatic irony
*Mail on Sunday*
This supremely talented and imaginative writer sure knows how to
pack a punch
*Sunday Times*
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