This Side of Brightness
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
In the early years of the century, Nathan Walker leaves the Okefenokee swamps of his native Georgia for New York City and the most dangerous job in America. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the underground tunnel that will carry trains between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
In the bowels of the riverbed the sandhogs - black, white, Irish, Italian - dig together; above ground, though, the men keep their distance until a spectacular accident welds a bond between Walker and his fellow sandhogs that will bless and curse the next three generations.
Years later, Treefrog, a homeless man driven below by a shameful secret, endures a punishing winter deep in his subway nest. In tones ranging from bleak to dark to disturbingly funny, Treefrog recounts his strategies of survival - killing rats, scavenging for soda cans, washing in the snow, sleeping through the cold - in New York's netherworld.
Between Nathan Walker and Treefrog stretch seventy years of ill-fated loves, unintended crimes, and social taboos. The two stories fuse to form a tale of family, race, and redemption.
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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. So here it is.
I largely had a positive opinion of McCann's second novel. The premise is strong. The writing is solid. The story takes place in a tunnel beneath New York City—one part follows a member of the crew constructing the subway tunnel, the other focuses on a homeless man who lives in the tunnel three generations later. McCann handles both time lines with equal precision and care. And he ties it all together quite wonderfully in the end. I have no complaints...
but I never quite connected with the story. It's possible this was my own blockage: perhaps it just wasn't the right time for me to read this novel. Or there may have been some level of disconnect in the text: a slight gap in character development, perhaps, or too much authorial involvement. Either way, I appreciated the novel, recognized the workmanship, but just didn't invest in it in a way that felt satisfactory to me.
