Thirteen Ways of Looking

author: Colum McCann
name: Wayne
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2017/08/12
date added: 2017/08/12
shelves:
review:
'Thirteen Ways of Looking' by Colum McCann is a brilliant collection comprised of a novella and three short stories. I found myself mesmerized by the language and rhythm of the writing.

The title novella is a day in the life of an aging judge who meets his son for dinner and the tragic events that unfold around that. The father relates events of the past and present in a stream-of-consciousness way that reflects how I know I think, and may be familiar to other readers. Each of the 13 chapters includes a stanza from Wallace Steven's poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

The three short stories are about a writer on a deadline, a mother who buys her son a gift he has been wanting, and a nun sees her rapist and tormentor on television at a peace conference and has to confront her feelings all over again.

In an afterword by the author, it is told that the stories were written before a senseless attack on the author after he tried to help a woman on the street. The attack left him unconscious and hospitalized. we are fortunate to still have this voice among us. It's a beautiful collection of stories.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Random House and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.


via Wayne's bookshelf: read http://ift.tt/2vPYWGV