Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann;Winner Nat'l Book Award

Irish born author, Colum McCann received the Nat'l Book Award for Let the Great World Spin.  In "Great World," McCann brilliantly intertwines diverse lives at a specific point in time inhabiting NYC.  "Trans Atlantic," is much more ambitious & even more rewarding.  The fulcrum connecting different generations & countries originates & returns to Ireland beginning with Lily, a young, destitute maid during the great famine.  Lily encounters Federick Douglas when he toured Ireland to gain public & financial support for the abolition of slavery in the States & for himself.  Douglas stirs Lily to pursue her own liberation.  She crosses the Atlantic by ship to America and the saga of Lily and her offspring commence.  Worlds are knotted together by war, persecution & human suffering. "Tunnels of lives connect, coming into daylight and then plunge us into the dark again."  McCann's elegiac writing & captivating storytelling makes us question what is life anyway.  "An accumulation of small shelves of incident.  Stacked at odd angles to each other."  I question whether McCann will repeat another Nat'l Book Award honor.  The odds are heavily stocked for it.