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Original Title:	This Side of Brightness
ISBN:	0312421974 (ISBN13: 9780312421977)
Edition Language:	English
Literary Awards:	International Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist (2000)

This Side of Brightness

Colum McCann

Paperback | Pages: 304 pages

Rating: 3.85 | 3161 Users | 340 Reviews

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At the turn of the century, Nathan Walker comes to New York City to take the most dangerous job in the country. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the tunnel that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the bowels of the riverbed, the sandhogs—black, white, Irish, Italian—dig together, the darkness erasing all differences. Above ground, though, the men keep their distance until a spectacular accident welds a bond between Walker and his fellow sandhogs that will both bless and curse three generations.

Declare Containing Books This Side of Brightness

Title	:	This Side of Brightness
Author	:	Colum McCann
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 304 pages
Published	:	January 1st 2003 by Picador (first published 1998)
Categories	:	Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. European Literature. Irish Literature. New York. Novels

Rating Containing Books This Side of Brightness

Ratings: 3.85 From 3161 Users | 340 Reviews

Write-Up Containing Books This Side of Brightness

Start with something positive; I loved the prose of this book. The writing was so smooth and really quite beautiful. That I enjoyed. The actual story...not so much. I was very disappointed after the hype about this book ~ I thought that this would be about the Irish experience in New York and for about a paragraph and a half it was. Much has been said about a white Irishman writing about the black experience, and that I don't have a problem with ~ what I don't like is that the African-American

This was an interesting story of the transportation tunnel under the East River connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan. McCann tells the story of the tunnel through juxtaposing chapters, first the building of the tunnel and the tragic lives of the immigrant workers through the eyes of Nathan Walker and the later live of the tunnel through the eyes of Treefrog, a homeless man living in/near the tunnel. Its not as well done as Rutherfurd or Steinbeck in terms of writing about the American peril or

I absolutely loved this book. I was completely absorbed into all of the different threads of the story--Walker's sandhog work digging tunnels under the rivers of Manhattan in the early 1900s, the arc of his life, the story of relatively modern-day tunnel-dwelling homeless. All of it fit together in ways that were emotionally powerful but not at all cutesy or overly contrived. McCann's fluency with language makes the book a joy to read. And he isn't afraid to take a hard look at race here in ways

It will be difficult to think about the New York City subway system without thinking about this book. I have ridden the subway on occasional trips to NYC and the next time I do I will be definitely be thinking about its history and about these characters, those who built the tunnels and those who lived there. This is an alternating narrative beginning with a man called Treefrog. Its 1991 and he lives underground in the tunnel with his cat to fend off the rats, off the grid, a self exile caused

If I come to an author late, I like to go visit the earlier works, to see the progression. That, and Im a completist. Having loved Let the Great World Spin and liked Zoli and Transatlantic, I wanted to see where Colum McCann came from. Other than, you know, Ireland.In This Side of Brightness, we see an already competent writer not yet in full confident stride. And there is already a formula, a template: take a relatively obscure historical event or two, connect them with plot lines which take

Although the story takes place a few generations ago, the economics resonate today. The writing was enjoyable but it was difficult for me to image digging the tunnels. I reread a few sections because I wanted to feel what the characters experienced. Another story without a fixed ending leaving you to imagine the next phase.