A free-diving engineer repairs the undersea cables that carry data around our hyperconnected planet, in this intense maritime story with echoes of Heart of DarknessColum McCann’s breakthrough 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin, was set on the day in 1974 when the acrobat Philippe Petit walked across a high wire strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. McCann’s bravura account of the wire-walk forms the centrepiece of that novel, which relates the interlocking lives of different New Yorkers who are touched by Petit’s thrilling but benign assault on the Manhattan skyline.In his new novel, Twist, McCann is drawn to another type of wire and another obsessive, boundary-pushing hero. The wires, this time, are the undersea cables that carry data around our hyperconnected planet. And the hero, John Conway, is an engineer and free diver who travels the world, repairing them when they break. Continue reading...
Colum McCann's novel "Twist" follows engineer and free diver John Conway as he repairs undersea cables essential to global communication. Narrated by journalist Anthony Fennell, the story explores Conway's enigmatic character and the dangers these vital cables face from both natural disasters and hostile actors, highlighting humanity's impact on the environment.
