Connections Severed and Retied: Colum McCann's Twist

Killian Quigley, an expert in oceanic humanities, is Chris's guest to discuss McCann's deep-sea adventure. Writer Anthony Fennell joins a vessel that repairs the information cables that run deep under the ocean, hoping for material for an article. Yet Fennell finds himself especially drawn to his fellow-Irishman, the expedition leader John Conway, both in thrall to and resentful of his corporate employers. Through Conway, Fennell understands the complexities of the undersea network: the cables are imperilled by climate change, yet also strike the alienated Fennell as symbolic of human connections, from family bonds to larger questions of social cohesion prompted by racial tensions. As Chris and Killian discuss, McCann is drawn to both literal and representative meanings of the data cables and the task of mending them. While the novel draws on such literary influences as Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad, and Jules Verne, the enigmatic Conway is a Gatsby figure who mystifies our narrator.

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