Laura B (now Laura H) recommended this book to me after her book club read it. Within thirty pages I kept remarking to Web as I read it each night before bed, “this is an incredibly ambitious book” and I think that summarizes how I feel about it. Ambitious-good, as in, choosing a very lofty theme and complex route to get there, not ambitious-bad, as in, sets high expectations for itself them doesn’t meet them. This may well be the best-crafted book I’ve ever read.
The story takes place in the summer of 1974, around the time when Philippe Petit found a way to string a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walk across it. The story of how he prepared for this feat is like a memorable musical theme that plays throughout the book, but it isn't the main plot. The story is about ten New Yorkers and what their lives were like that summer. The characters range from prostitutes and graffiti artists to a set of mothers who have lost their sons in Vietnam. Each character is incredibly well-developed, and many of them are also incredibly sympathetic.
What is special about the book is how McCann ties all the stories together and calls on Petit's story as an interlude. His capture of place and time is exquisite. I think it will be a while before I find another book as special as this one.
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