It’s amazing debut books like this that can so easily be missed. Originally published by a university press and later picked up by Random House, we had it for almost two years without selling before this new edition came out. I tore through it almost too quickly. Porter’s narrators (haunted, damaged) look back on life-changing events trying to understand what happened and how their lives are affected. In shining prose he investigates memory; how we look at mistakes, missed connections and opportunities, and seek to make clear stories out of the things we couldn’t see as they were happening. Each story is more beautiful, complex, and well-crafted than the one preceding it. I can’t wait for his next (a novel).

How can I say all I want to say? “Let The Great World Spin,” is one of three books I’ve read recently (the other two being “Homer & Langley,” by E.L.Doctorow and “Netherland” by Joseph O’Neill) that are set in New York. Taken together they are like a triptych—with McCann’s book as the centerpiece—unfolding a story of our changing country and world—from the beginning of the last century to the beginning of this one. The centerpiece of the centerpiece features Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the twin towers as the “thread” that ties together a world of characters that brings to mind Dante’s “Purgatorio”—the richest and most human book in the Divine Comedy. Not only does the walk tie together this amazing world of people but it is also the bridge, metaphorically, between our times and what came before—between WWII, for example, and 9/11: Buried deep in the book is the photo of Petit between the towers; above his head is a roaring jet plane seeming about to crash—Frozen in time—in the picture—between the two buildings—a chance to take a deep breath and take everything in—freeze it in time—and then let it all out: A beautiful metaphor for art itself. Abounding in poetry and drama. And like “Purgatorio” the richest and most human of the three books. The meatiest, the beatiest, the bounciest. The most resonant. Truly breathtaking.