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Twist
A propulsive novel of rupture and repair in the digital age, delving into a hidden world deep under the ocean—from the New York Times bestselling author of Apeirogon and Let the Great World Spin
“Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.”
Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at unfathomable depths.
Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. He meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. He is also in love with a South African actress, Zanele, who must leave to go on her own literary adventure to London.
When the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea, they are forced to confront the most elemental questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections. Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts? Can the ruptured things awaken us from our despair?
Resoundingly simple and turbulent at the same time, Twist is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of the great storytellers of our times.
“Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.”
Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at unfathomable depths.
Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. He meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. He is also in love with a South African actress, Zanele, who must leave to go on her own literary adventure to London.
When the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea, they are forced to confront the most elemental questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections. Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts? Can the ruptured things awaken us from our despair?
Resoundingly simple and turbulent at the same time, Twist is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of the great storytellers of our times.
239 pages, Hardcover
First published March 6, 2025
1058 people are currently reading
23789 people want to read
About the author
Colum McCann
79 books4,482 followersSign up for Colum's newsletter: http://bit.ly/mccannsignup
Colum McCann is the author of three collections of short stories and six novels, including "Apeirogon," published in Spring 2020. His other books include "TransAtlantic," "Let the Great World Spin," "This Side of Brightness,""Dancer" and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers.
His newest book, American Mother, written with Diane Foley, is due to be published in March 2024.
American Mother takes us deep into the story of Diane Foley; whose son Jim, a freelance journalist, was held captive by ISIS before being beheaded in the Syrian desert.
Diane’s voice is channeled into searing reality by Colum, who brings us on a journey of strength, resilience, and radical empathy.
"American Mother is a book that will shake your soul out," says Sting.
Apeirogon (2020) became a best-seller on four continent.
“Let the Great World Spin” won the National Book Award in 2009. His fiction has been published in over 40 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Paris Review and other places. He has written for numerous publications including The Irish Times, Die Zeit, La Republicca, Paris Match, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent.
In December 2023 Colum (as co-founder of Narrative 4) was the 2023 Humanitarian Award nominee, awarded by the United Nations delegations at the Ambassador's Ball in New York City.
Colum has won numerous international awards. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Irish association of artists, Aosdana. He has also received a Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres from the French government. He is the cofounder of the global non-profit story exchange organisation Narrative 4.
In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame for Irish Literature.
His short film "Everything in this Country Must," directed by Gary McKendry, was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in 2005.
Colum was born in Dublin in 1965 and began his career as a journalist in The Irish Press. In the early 1980's he took a bicycle across North America and then worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas. After a year and a half in Japan, he and his wife Allison moved to New York where they currently live with their three children, Isabella, John Michael and Christian.
Colum teaches in Hunter College in New York, in the Creative Writing program, with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Tea Obreht.
Colum has completed his new novel, "Apeirogon." Crafted out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material, McCann tells the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan. One is Israeli. One is Palestinian. Both are fathers. Both have lost their daughters to the conflict. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other's stories they recognize the loss that connects them, and they begin to use their grief as a weapon for peace.
In the novel McCann crosses centuries and continents. He stitches together time, art, history, nature and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our times.
It is scheduled for release in the U.S in February 2020.
Advance copies will be available here on GoodReads!!!!
Colum McCann is the author of three collections of short stories and six novels, including "Apeirogon," published in Spring 2020. His other books include "TransAtlantic," "Let the Great World Spin," "This Side of Brightness,""Dancer" and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers.
His newest book, American Mother, written with Diane Foley, is due to be published in March 2024.
American Mother takes us deep into the story of Diane Foley; whose son Jim, a freelance journalist, was held captive by ISIS before being beheaded in the Syrian desert.
Diane’s voice is channeled into searing reality by Colum, who brings us on a journey of strength, resilience, and radical empathy.
"American Mother is a book that will shake your soul out," says Sting.
Apeirogon (2020) became a best-seller on four continent.
“Let the Great World Spin” won the National Book Award in 2009. His fiction has been published in over 40 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Paris Review and other places. He has written for numerous publications including The Irish Times, Die Zeit, La Republicca, Paris Match, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent.
In December 2023 Colum (as co-founder of Narrative 4) was the 2023 Humanitarian Award nominee, awarded by the United Nations delegations at the Ambassador's Ball in New York City.
Colum has won numerous international awards. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Irish association of artists, Aosdana. He has also received a Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres from the French government. He is the cofounder of the global non-profit story exchange organisation Narrative 4.
In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame for Irish Literature.
His short film "Everything in this Country Must," directed by Gary McKendry, was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in 2005.
Colum was born in Dublin in 1965 and began his career as a journalist in The Irish Press. In the early 1980's he took a bicycle across North America and then worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas. After a year and a half in Japan, he and his wife Allison moved to New York where they currently live with their three children, Isabella, John Michael and Christian.
Colum teaches in Hunter College in New York, in the Creative Writing program, with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Tea Obreht.
Colum has completed his new novel, "Apeirogon." Crafted out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material, McCann tells the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan. One is Israeli. One is Palestinian. Both are fathers. Both have lost their daughters to the conflict. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other's stories they recognize the loss that connects them, and they begin to use their grief as a weapon for peace.
In the novel McCann crosses centuries and continents. He stitches together time, art, history, nature and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our times.
It is scheduled for release in the U.S in February 2020.
Advance copies will be available here on GoodReads!!!!
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,144 reviews
April 15, 2025
A fascinating look at the information highway that exists below the sea. How these cables transport information until one snaps or a few; and the impact it has on lives.
Fennell, an Irish journalist, has gone to South Africa to write a piece on how these cables are repaired. But this is about more than just broken cables. It’s about broken people and broken relationships.
McCann’s writing is immersive. He delivers vastly layered characters who are as complex as these cables but just as uncomplicated when considering the human condition. That twist? It’s startling in its simplicity.
4.25⭐️
**This will appeal to readers who appreciate free diving**
Fennell, an Irish journalist, has gone to South Africa to write a piece on how these cables are repaired. But this is about more than just broken cables. It’s about broken people and broken relationships.
McCann’s writing is immersive. He delivers vastly layered characters who are as complex as these cables but just as uncomplicated when considering the human condition. That twist? It’s startling in its simplicity.
4.25⭐️
**This will appeal to readers who appreciate free diving**
November 17, 2024
Fascinating that so much of what keeps the internet running is buried under the sea. Chilling to stop and take a moment to really think about how much of our daily lives are so affected and so dependent on it . Even more fascinating, the human connections , the emotional ones , the difficult to understand ones , reflected in the complex characters and their relationships here . This novel is introspective and profound in reflecting connections made and connections broken, connections salvaged between people we want to understand , but don’t always. A short book , a slow burn , probably a slow read for me as most are at the moment.
Colum McCann is a versatile writer giving us stories so different from each other in storyline and characters, yet the quality of the writing is so consistently meticulous, with perfect descriptions, with beautiful prose in so many places and always deeply moving . Another book by Colum McCann, another reason why he is one of my all time favorite writers .
I received a copy of this from the publisher through NetGalley .
January 8, 2025
[4.75]
This is Colum McCann, folks! Can’t go wrong. He captured the skies in the pages of TransAtlantic, whether physical (like clouds), mental (the work of flying planes), emotional (the sight of poverty), or psychological (leaving earth’s boundaries). Here we have the setting of water, often its depths, and mind-fucking technology, like learning that data is mostly stored underwater, not in the cloud.
It was a 6 star for me much of the way. The climax has some predictable features but is still compelling and additionally, cinematic. What lowered my rating is that after the climax, it dragged out a bit and was drastically dissected. The smart reader will know these things already, due to all the fine writing and character development that preceded it. (I wonder if the editor demanded more *tell* than was necessary?) It just took a little bit of the buzz away.
Anyway, I want to talk about the positives. There was a Cormac McCarthy PASSENGER vibe to it in peaks. Also the features of toxic male syndrome is tucked in tight. There’s an evolution and a revolution-ary wave to it. The magic of technology. Humanity broken and restored.
Rival and narrator Anthony Fennell, an Irish born writer of journal pieces and plays, and diver John Conway, a man from everywhere and nowhere, represent archetypes, as if Archetypes 2.0 has been issued. Topics that concern us and meet the moment, like celebrity fever, corruption, and cos play, are examined. There's some kaleidoscopic twists, too. And flips.
Actress Zanele left a vital and verve-y impression on me. She's a resilient woman--a smidge cryptic, a lot charismatic. I’m trying to determine for myself if two men loving (if that is the accurate word) or desiring the same woman is what makes them rivals. Would they be rivals if not for this? Either way, their mutual if sometimes inscrutable conflict is intense but subtle. Calling it a love triangle might be reductive because it wasn't even explicitly said that Fennell loves Zanele, Conway's girlfriend.
McCann can’t be beat when it comes to mood, atmosphere, setting (mostly the west coast of Africa)—in fact, all five senses come to mind. Beautiful, euphonious writing. He could make beetle shit look arresting. I used to be a scuba diver, so the language and choreography of the dives came easy to me. McCann vividly took us with him, and the scenes underwater were riveting.
The story rests on themes of fracturing and unraveling and the nature of the narrative, and the plot centers on two rivals fixing underwater connections that could simultaneously reveal their hidden secrets. A pair ‘a ducks, this one! Definitely in top books I’ve read this year, but it isn’t published until 03/25/2025.
As always, a huge thanks to Penguin Random house for sending me an ARC to review.
This is Colum McCann, folks! Can’t go wrong. He captured the skies in the pages of TransAtlantic, whether physical (like clouds), mental (the work of flying planes), emotional (the sight of poverty), or psychological (leaving earth’s boundaries). Here we have the setting of water, often its depths, and mind-fucking technology, like learning that data is mostly stored underwater, not in the cloud.
It was a 6 star for me much of the way. The climax has some predictable features but is still compelling and additionally, cinematic. What lowered my rating is that after the climax, it dragged out a bit and was drastically dissected. The smart reader will know these things already, due to all the fine writing and character development that preceded it. (I wonder if the editor demanded more *tell* than was necessary?) It just took a little bit of the buzz away.
Anyway, I want to talk about the positives. There was a Cormac McCarthy PASSENGER vibe to it in peaks. Also the features of toxic male syndrome is tucked in tight. There’s an evolution and a revolution-ary wave to it. The magic of technology. Humanity broken and restored.
Rival and narrator Anthony Fennell, an Irish born writer of journal pieces and plays, and diver John Conway, a man from everywhere and nowhere, represent archetypes, as if Archetypes 2.0 has been issued. Topics that concern us and meet the moment, like celebrity fever, corruption, and cos play, are examined. There's some kaleidoscopic twists, too. And flips.
Actress Zanele left a vital and verve-y impression on me. She's a resilient woman--a smidge cryptic, a lot charismatic. I’m trying to determine for myself if two men loving (if that is the accurate word) or desiring the same woman is what makes them rivals. Would they be rivals if not for this? Either way, their mutual if sometimes inscrutable conflict is intense but subtle. Calling it a love triangle might be reductive because it wasn't even explicitly said that Fennell loves Zanele, Conway's girlfriend.
McCann can’t be beat when it comes to mood, atmosphere, setting (mostly the west coast of Africa)—in fact, all five senses come to mind. Beautiful, euphonious writing. He could make beetle shit look arresting. I used to be a scuba diver, so the language and choreography of the dives came easy to me. McCann vividly took us with him, and the scenes underwater were riveting.
The story rests on themes of fracturing and unraveling and the nature of the narrative, and the plot centers on two rivals fixing underwater connections that could simultaneously reveal their hidden secrets. A pair ‘a ducks, this one! Definitely in top books I’ve read this year, but it isn’t published until 03/25/2025.
As always, a huge thanks to Penguin Random house for sending me an ARC to review.
March 25, 2025
Publishing Today! (March 25, 2025)
Shhh…
Irish journalist Anthony Fennell is disconnected, grappling with alcoholism and a lack of direction. When his editor assigns him a story about ships that repair underwater cable breaks, he hesitates. However, the allure of sailing out to sea and evading the pressures of his life ashore ultimately compels him to accept the assignment.
“What I needed was a story about connection, about grace, about repair.”
Undersea fiber-optic cables are vital for global communication. In "Twist," massive underwater avalanches of plants, trees, and garbage, triggered by the Congo River's response to environmental abuse, sever the cables connecting Africa to the rest of the world, and cause a major communication crisis.
The novel follows a very “Gatsby-esque” path, as Fennell's focus shifts from documenting the repair mission to his growing fascination with Conway, the mission's leader, and Zanele, Conway's lover. Initially presented as a reliable figure, Conway's behavior takes an unexpected and erratic twist, throwing Fennell off balance. Despite the intention to avoid a personality-driven narrative, Fennell’s obsession with Conway overshadows the repair mission and ultimately takes center stage.
The breakdown of communication, both societally and personally, is central to the story. There is a mysterious disruption of mass communication, while a man in midlife crisis struggles to reconnect with his ex-wife and estranged son. The overabundance of information in the world hasn't prevented the deterioration of human relationships.
“Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.”
“You can ache for years and not even know that you’ve been aching. The ache has gone so deep that it seems to come from another life, one now even remembered anymore.”
The captivating story of the Conway saga and the charismatic, mysterious captain was more developed than the narrator’s inner conflict. McCann's prose is brilliant, but the merging of the two storylines felt forced. The passages on our reliance on undersea cables were also fascinating.
Thank you to the Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Twist #NetGalley
Shhh…
Irish journalist Anthony Fennell is disconnected, grappling with alcoholism and a lack of direction. When his editor assigns him a story about ships that repair underwater cable breaks, he hesitates. However, the allure of sailing out to sea and evading the pressures of his life ashore ultimately compels him to accept the assignment.
“What I needed was a story about connection, about grace, about repair.”
Undersea fiber-optic cables are vital for global communication. In "Twist," massive underwater avalanches of plants, trees, and garbage, triggered by the Congo River's response to environmental abuse, sever the cables connecting Africa to the rest of the world, and cause a major communication crisis.
The novel follows a very “Gatsby-esque” path, as Fennell's focus shifts from documenting the repair mission to his growing fascination with Conway, the mission's leader, and Zanele, Conway's lover. Initially presented as a reliable figure, Conway's behavior takes an unexpected and erratic twist, throwing Fennell off balance. Despite the intention to avoid a personality-driven narrative, Fennell’s obsession with Conway overshadows the repair mission and ultimately takes center stage.
The breakdown of communication, both societally and personally, is central to the story. There is a mysterious disruption of mass communication, while a man in midlife crisis struggles to reconnect with his ex-wife and estranged son. The overabundance of information in the world hasn't prevented the deterioration of human relationships.
“Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.”
“You can ache for years and not even know that you’ve been aching. The ache has gone so deep that it seems to come from another life, one now even remembered anymore.”
The captivating story of the Conway saga and the charismatic, mysterious captain was more developed than the narrator’s inner conflict. McCann's prose is brilliant, but the merging of the two storylines felt forced. The passages on our reliance on undersea cables were also fascinating.
Thank you to the Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Twist #NetGalley
June 14, 2025
Reflective and meditative in style, even though with foreshadowing a death is mentioned early on in the book. A lot is touched upon but I lacked depth in the novel
Few of the stories we have inside ourselves ever get properly spoken.
The subject matter of death involving a deepsea repair boat of the coast of Africa, is interesting enough. Also there is racism against a South African actor and musings on colonialism, isolation and some wonderment on how the modern day world works. It is, however, like Colum McCann goes around pointing at all these themes, but just doesn’t take it further in Twist.
The narrator in this novel, Anthony Fennell is an aphorism spewing, reflective and alcoholic 48 year old writer searching a break from his life, estranged from his teenage son who lives in Santiago. He meets John Conway, a 30ish supervisor of a boat that repairs the fibre optics on the ocean floor. His partner set to play in London (which later turns out to be Brighton) of Beckett. Cape Town and colonial history initially play a big role in the novel (Nowhere on earth makes you feel so pale and pasty as Cape Town). The book is surprisingly reflective and meditative in style, even though with foreshadowing a death is mentioned early on.
I would have liked to have dived a little bit deeper on the repair ships, which apparently need 53 men to run, and how the company deals with the arduous task of keeping the cables that support the world wide web running. Maybe this is reflective of something one of the character mentions quite early on: The disease of our days is that we spend so much time on the surface
Breakdown of communication keeps returning in myriad ways in the novel. Moby Dick is mentioned as a book that the narrator read as a kid, as are Heart of Darkness, and both I recognise in the careful but rather indirect narration.
There is a scene with a truly unhinged way that the narrator met his father's ex-wife that sounds deeply disturbing. Maybe this is an exponent of alcoholism?
The meta take on writing the narrative starts to tire me, and this is a 250 page book. Part 2 is rather vague and inert in my view and stealing copper from deep sea cables seems like a ridiculously difficult way to get some cash.
Then we move into the final section that comes with the massive disclaimer All conjecture off course that got me asking what actually happens in this novel.
Overall this was 2.5 stars rounded down for me, and I am a bit disappointed, despite the excellent use of language and interesting themes.
Quotes
Past is retrievable but certainly not changeable
I’ve learned how easy it is to condescend when you don’t participate
If the ocean was a bank they would have saved it a long time ago
They were rupturing, they were part of the broken things
We can only find the middle at the end
It takes a lot of volume to fill a life
We don’t really know the dark until we get there
For him downward was a journey inward
Just because the truth is ignored doesn’t mean it isn’t true
We flatter ourselves when we think we can be someone else completely
Few of the stories we have inside ourselves ever get properly spoken.
All stories are love stories
I was a surprise even for myself
Few of the stories we have inside ourselves ever get properly spoken.
The subject matter of death involving a deepsea repair boat of the coast of Africa, is interesting enough. Also there is racism against a South African actor and musings on colonialism, isolation and some wonderment on how the modern day world works. It is, however, like Colum McCann goes around pointing at all these themes, but just doesn’t take it further in Twist.
The narrator in this novel, Anthony Fennell is an aphorism spewing, reflective and alcoholic 48 year old writer searching a break from his life, estranged from his teenage son who lives in Santiago. He meets John Conway, a 30ish supervisor of a boat that repairs the fibre optics on the ocean floor. His partner set to play in London (which later turns out to be Brighton) of Beckett. Cape Town and colonial history initially play a big role in the novel (Nowhere on earth makes you feel so pale and pasty as Cape Town). The book is surprisingly reflective and meditative in style, even though with foreshadowing a death is mentioned early on.
I would have liked to have dived a little bit deeper on the repair ships, which apparently need 53 men to run, and how the company deals with the arduous task of keeping the cables that support the world wide web running. Maybe this is reflective of something one of the character mentions quite early on: The disease of our days is that we spend so much time on the surface
Breakdown of communication keeps returning in myriad ways in the novel. Moby Dick is mentioned as a book that the narrator read as a kid, as are Heart of Darkness, and both I recognise in the careful but rather indirect narration.
There is a scene with a truly unhinged way that the narrator met his father's ex-wife that sounds deeply disturbing. Maybe this is an exponent of alcoholism?
The meta take on writing the narrative starts to tire me, and this is a 250 page book. Part 2 is rather vague and inert in my view and stealing copper from deep sea cables seems like a ridiculously difficult way to get some cash.
Then we move into the final section that comes with the massive disclaimer All conjecture off course that got me asking what actually happens in this novel.
Overall this was 2.5 stars rounded down for me, and I am a bit disappointed, despite the excellent use of language and interesting themes.
Quotes
Past is retrievable but certainly not changeable
I’ve learned how easy it is to condescend when you don’t participate
If the ocean was a bank they would have saved it a long time ago
They were rupturing, they were part of the broken things
We can only find the middle at the end
It takes a lot of volume to fill a life
We don’t really know the dark until we get there
For him downward was a journey inward
Just because the truth is ignored doesn’t mean it isn’t true
We flatter ourselves when we think we can be someone else completely
Few of the stories we have inside ourselves ever get properly spoken.
All stories are love stories
I was a surprise even for myself
November 22, 2024
“Everything gets fixed. And we all stay broken.”
Let me cut right to the chase: this book is positively dazzling. Eye-opening. Downright gutting. It’s so extraordinarily good that it soars to the top of the best contemporary fiction I have ever read, and I read a lot.
I finished the last page minutes ago, and I am still gasping for air, much like the book’s anti-hero, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. Twist calls to mind the ancient teaching in the Jewish religion, tikkun olam, which translates to “repairing the world.” At the same time, it evokes the dying words of Mr. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novel, Heart of Darkness: “The horror! The horror!” hinting at man’s intrinsic savagery.
Immediately, Twist distinguishes itself by its subject matter. Few readers know – I certainly didn’t– that nearly all our information travels through tiny tubes at the bottom of the ocean, the primordial place where life first began. Billions of light pulses carry words, images, voices, texts, and viruses in a flow of pulsating light in tubes made from glass. Every scrap of our existence resides within these tubes.
When these cables break or stress, they must be quickly repaired. If not, the consequences would be catastrophic. So far, this is precisely what has occurred in our lives. But Colum McCann begs us to consider that lives, too, get fractured, and even skilled engineers and freedivers who need to repair themselves are capable of fracturing as they plunge into darkness.
Twist is told from the perspective of an Irish journalist and playwright, Anthony Fennell, who is assigned to cover the repair of the underwater cables. There, he meets fellow Irishman John Conway, a quixotic character besotted by a talented South African actress. The part she will play is integral and best not explored in a review. We learn quickly—within the first 30 pages—what happens to Conway, but we must unweave the complications of what we call the truth.
So many powerful questions arise from the depths of this novel. We crawled out from the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago and now choose to call it a vast emptiness, but why? Why are we blithely destroying our birthplace? (As Conway says, there’s nowhere we haven’t fucked up.)
In trying to repair the cable underground so that humankind can keep going faster and faster and faster, what hath God wrong? Are we metaphorically just putting the ends together so people can ruin one another? Are we dulling or even killing each other with poisonous information? Is what lies underneath – in the ocean and in our own being – exhibit the power to enlighten and then betray? Are we dropping our human connections to embrace those connections that fail to matter? Is it true that everything is made to be dissembled, but not all can be repaired?
If you only read one book in 2025, make sure this is the one. I am in awe of Colum McCann and what he achieved in playing his own part in tikkun olam. This book is unforgettable and I am privileged to be an early reader through Random House in exchange for an honest review.
Let me cut right to the chase: this book is positively dazzling. Eye-opening. Downright gutting. It’s so extraordinarily good that it soars to the top of the best contemporary fiction I have ever read, and I read a lot.
I finished the last page minutes ago, and I am still gasping for air, much like the book’s anti-hero, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. Twist calls to mind the ancient teaching in the Jewish religion, tikkun olam, which translates to “repairing the world.” At the same time, it evokes the dying words of Mr. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novel, Heart of Darkness: “The horror! The horror!” hinting at man’s intrinsic savagery.
Immediately, Twist distinguishes itself by its subject matter. Few readers know – I certainly didn’t– that nearly all our information travels through tiny tubes at the bottom of the ocean, the primordial place where life first began. Billions of light pulses carry words, images, voices, texts, and viruses in a flow of pulsating light in tubes made from glass. Every scrap of our existence resides within these tubes.
When these cables break or stress, they must be quickly repaired. If not, the consequences would be catastrophic. So far, this is precisely what has occurred in our lives. But Colum McCann begs us to consider that lives, too, get fractured, and even skilled engineers and freedivers who need to repair themselves are capable of fracturing as they plunge into darkness.
Twist is told from the perspective of an Irish journalist and playwright, Anthony Fennell, who is assigned to cover the repair of the underwater cables. There, he meets fellow Irishman John Conway, a quixotic character besotted by a talented South African actress. The part she will play is integral and best not explored in a review. We learn quickly—within the first 30 pages—what happens to Conway, but we must unweave the complications of what we call the truth.
So many powerful questions arise from the depths of this novel. We crawled out from the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago and now choose to call it a vast emptiness, but why? Why are we blithely destroying our birthplace? (As Conway says, there’s nowhere we haven’t fucked up.)
In trying to repair the cable underground so that humankind can keep going faster and faster and faster, what hath God wrong? Are we metaphorically just putting the ends together so people can ruin one another? Are we dulling or even killing each other with poisonous information? Is what lies underneath – in the ocean and in our own being – exhibit the power to enlighten and then betray? Are we dropping our human connections to embrace those connections that fail to matter? Is it true that everything is made to be dissembled, but not all can be repaired?
If you only read one book in 2025, make sure this is the one. I am in awe of Colum McCann and what he achieved in playing his own part in tikkun olam. This book is unforgettable and I am privileged to be an early reader through Random House in exchange for an honest review.
February 6, 2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Literary Fiction
I have two books by Colum McCann on my wishlist. Both Apeirogon and TransAtlantic have been on my wishlist for quite some time. When I had the chance to get a preapproved copy of his latest novel, “Twist,” I jumped at the opportunity and decided to explore his newer work, and I’m glad I did.
Although it doesn’t explicitly state in the synopsis, Twist is a modern reimagining of The Great Gatsby. The story follows an Irish journalist and playwright, Thomas Fennell, who is assigned to cover the underwater internet cables, their maintenance, and recovery. During his journey, he meets engineer John Conway and his love interest, Zanele, a South African actress.
The story delves into the narrator’s relationship with those two characters, as well as many more complex themes of our time that are well contrasted when compared. For instance, it examines the ironic dilemma of how the fiber-optic cables under the sea serve to bring people closer together, yet in reality, individuals are becoming emotionally distant.
Another similarity between this book and The Great Gatsby is that the narrator doesn’t feel reliable enough. He didn’t seem deceivable to me or anything like that, but as I progressed through the story, I could sense that he was withholding information, like not telling the other characters that he had a son.
The plot itself is not the strongest aspect of this book because the story relies more on character development. The book has a slow pace, and I understand the reason for this deliberate choice. Personally, both the plot and theme are outside my usual reading comfort zone. However, it is the excellent writing, with its lyrical and thoughtful prose, that elevated this book for me. I truly enjoyed the author’s poetic writing style and look forward to reading more of his works.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.
Genre: Literary Fiction
I have two books by Colum McCann on my wishlist. Both Apeirogon and TransAtlantic have been on my wishlist for quite some time. When I had the chance to get a preapproved copy of his latest novel, “Twist,” I jumped at the opportunity and decided to explore his newer work, and I’m glad I did.
Although it doesn’t explicitly state in the synopsis, Twist is a modern reimagining of The Great Gatsby. The story follows an Irish journalist and playwright, Thomas Fennell, who is assigned to cover the underwater internet cables, their maintenance, and recovery. During his journey, he meets engineer John Conway and his love interest, Zanele, a South African actress.
The story delves into the narrator’s relationship with those two characters, as well as many more complex themes of our time that are well contrasted when compared. For instance, it examines the ironic dilemma of how the fiber-optic cables under the sea serve to bring people closer together, yet in reality, individuals are becoming emotionally distant.
Another similarity between this book and The Great Gatsby is that the narrator doesn’t feel reliable enough. He didn’t seem deceivable to me or anything like that, but as I progressed through the story, I could sense that he was withholding information, like not telling the other characters that he had a son.
The plot itself is not the strongest aspect of this book because the story relies more on character development. The book has a slow pace, and I understand the reason for this deliberate choice. Personally, both the plot and theme are outside my usual reading comfort zone. However, it is the excellent writing, with its lyrical and thoughtful prose, that elevated this book for me. I truly enjoyed the author’s poetic writing style and look forward to reading more of his works.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.
November 7, 2024
This is a great example of an engaging story beautifully told by a writer with a limitless curiosity for unusual subjects. In other words, a masterwork. Colum McCann is one of those writers whose work I'll choose no matter what the subject since his poetic style is inimitable and his choice of material always interesting and informative. Here we have a down on his luck freelance writer from Dublin given the assignment of doing a piece on a ship tasked with reparation of the fiber optic tubes that carry the world's information on the ocean floor. Our narrator finds himself intrigued by the master of the crew, a diving expert with a story of his own. An encounter that changes the narrator's life. In other words, this is one of those books that makes me glad I love to read.
April 18, 2025
This book was my very first Colum McCann read, and I guess I'm hoping it wasn't really representative. A writer, estranged from his son, embarks on a writing assignment about the cables under the sea that carry data and what occurs when those break. Conway is the man who is in charge of the cable repair process on the ship. Conway has a complicated relationship with Zanele, an up and coming actress.
Divided into three parts, I would characterize them as:
Part I - set up, dull
Part II - Okay, yay, something major happens to Conway, but do I really even care about the characters at all? Especially the narrator?
Part III - Back to dull, except INEXPLICABLY, there is one chapter that is from a different character's POV, and that one was beautifully rendered. I appreciated that one chapter as poetic and literary, and well, not boring.
Otherwise though, honestly, the whole book felt arms length. I never felt like I knew or remotely cared about any of these characters. Only the narrator comes to life a bit, at the very end of the book.
The book is filled with metaphor where the cables represent relationships. It's a bit on the nose, but somehow is saved by intriguing and beautiful writing.
The wonder of things is that they were ever created in the first place. Maybe that was the simplicity we needed. Everything is made to be disassembled. Not all of it can be repaired. All there is is the trying."
It's writing like this that elevates the whole reading experience, and I will give credit for it. But the metaphor shouldn't drive the story. It just feels forced. The story need to illuminate the theme, and here, I don't think it really did.
Divided into three parts, I would characterize them as:
Part I - set up, dull
Part II - Okay, yay, something major happens to Conway, but do I really even care about the characters at all? Especially the narrator?
Part III - Back to dull, except INEXPLICABLY, there is one chapter that is from a different character's POV, and that one was beautifully rendered. I appreciated that one chapter as poetic and literary, and well, not boring.
Otherwise though, honestly, the whole book felt arms length. I never felt like I knew or remotely cared about any of these characters. Only the narrator comes to life a bit, at the very end of the book.
The book is filled with metaphor where the cables represent relationships. It's a bit on the nose, but somehow is saved by intriguing and beautiful writing.
The wonder of things is that they were ever created in the first place. Maybe that was the simplicity we needed. Everything is made to be disassembled. Not all of it can be repaired. All there is is the trying."
It's writing like this that elevates the whole reading experience, and I will give credit for it. But the metaphor shouldn't drive the story. It just feels forced. The story need to illuminate the theme, and here, I don't think it really did.
April 6, 2025
During the seven weeks between Super Bowl Sunday and baseball opening day, I find myself watching old clips of both sports to bide the time. One video that I discovered was the 1999 Super Bowl halftime show, which featured Disney characters who spoke of the oneness of humanity around the world. At the dawn of the internet age, people from all walks of life saw the possibilities of a world becoming smaller through the connectivity of this new medium. I remember two instances during those last few years before 9-11 that spoke of the same one world mantra that I saw in the video. One is a small group college class I took about globalism, and the entire course thesis was indeed how the world has grown smaller over time and , of course, the human consequences of this new globalization. The other memory is the trip I took to Epcot with my grandmother. Each country appeared to be advertising and encouraging people to visit all the countries of the world, a continuation of the positive vibes that Disney presented in its Super Bowl performance. Twenty five years later the world is connected for better or for worse via the internet. The new age of globalization has reached heights that I wonder if the innovators had forethought when they introduced this new medium. People can chat with friends on the other side of the world for free on various platforms. The distance between people had indeed shrunk to the point of humanity becoming the one world envisioned twenty five years ago.
The average person believes that text messages arrive at their destination via satellites installed in space. These messages actually travel in tubes on the sea floor, arriving at their destination within seconds. What if one of these cables happened to snap? That is the premise of the new novel written by Colum McCann, one of the masters of literary prose in this current generation. McCann is no stranger to the concept of a shrinking world due to the migration of people from one point to another. He addressed this very idea in TransAtlantic. In Twist, named for the melding of cables that carry messages along the sea floor, McCann returns to discuss the connectivity of people throughout the world, this time va the internet. In this day and age, people are plugged into their devices 24/7. When one’s wi-fi is down, as it was in my house for a good thirty six hours earlier this week, people get testy and begin to panic because most of life’s mundane tasks now require internet access. Should a cable carrying the world’s email and text messages break underneath the sea, entire countries could stand to lose their internet service, sending these countries into pandemonium. This is the scenario that McCann presents to his readers in Twist.
Anthony Fennell is a struggling middle-aged writer who has not published a novel in years. He was married once to a Chilean woman named Irenea and has a teenaged son named Joli, but Fennell has not seen either in ages, Joli having all but no memories of his father. Fennell gets a tip from an e-zine editor that the next big story is sea floor internet cables, and he is asked to write a feature article about how the cables work. Having nothing to lose at this point, Fennell travels from Dublin to Cape Town in search of a scoop, anything to jump start his career. The narrative is told from Fennell’s point of view in flashback, as he contemplates the events in this novel, what could have been done differently to preserve relationships between people. Few writers blend fiction into reality like McCann. In his author q&a at the end of TransAtlantic, he speaks of fiction versus truth and the work put in to bringing characters to life. The example he states is that just because Scout Finch only exists in a book does not mean that she is not real. As in this interview and in McCann’s other books, the events in Twist will give me pause for thought. The internet, relationships in real life and only over the web are issues that most of us encounter on a daily basis. McCann brings his fiction close to reality by addressing real world issues, pausing readers to think while still savoring his words.
In order to kickstart his career and get off the bottle, Fennell interviews a free diver named John Conway who is also an Irishman. As we find later, Conway is a master of disguise, a conman. He is also the ship commander of the Georges Lecointe, a ship tasked with finding three cable breaks of the coast of West Africa. He crew’s job is to find the breaks and repair the cables before the entire world goes dark of information. Fennell gets special permission to join the crew even if it means spending two months at sea. At this point in his career, he has nothing to lose and decides to follow the story. Conway is not easy to read. He has his own secrets and gaps in his existence, but it is obvious that he feels more comfortable in water than he does on land, reaching meditative states in his free dives that last nearly ten minutes. While commandeering the Georges Lecointe, Conway contemplates his own relationship with his partner Zanele and her two children who aren’t his but for all practical purposes are. Zanele is off to London to perform in a new interpretation of Waiting for Godot. This role could define her career and make her a star but it would also mean trading in the life of a diver for a just as purposeful one on land. Conway closes himself off to people and focuses on his job while Fennell wonders about Zanele and the twisting kaleidoscope relationship between the two of them. Even though he has been told not to write about the actress, interpersonal relationships appeal more to Fennell than repairing undersea cables. He contemplates his own relationship with his son, and, like Conway, just wants to get the job done and go home.
McCann notes that the story is about Fennell, Conway, and Zanele. All three are intriguing personas who have too many secrets that do not appear in print. Even though Fennell is the narrator, there is much to his life that readers never find out. As the seamen repair the internet cables allowing for worldwide communication to resume, Fennell crafts his article while also deciding what words to write to his son in an attempt to reopen channels of communication. He notes that he will just send a text because that is how teenagers communicate today; that text will travel in a tube along the bed of the sea and arrive to Chile within seconds. How fascinating. Fennell is yet another middle aged man to me who has come a crossroads in his life. The intriguing characters are Conway and Zanele, and McCann tantalizes readers with tidbits of information about their past and present lives while leaving out elements of their past that define who they are. Readers are left hanging and thinking about who these characters are exactly. What lead a South African and Irish citizen to meet in Key West, and how will the distance between them affect their budding relationship? Thankfully the distance between them is negligible due to the presence of the internet. How Conway and Zanele navigate this relationship over the years arriving at the events in this novel remain a mystery to readers. In the end we can only speculate as Fennell attempts to piece together lives in order to have closure, allowing his own life at a crossroads to move forward.
Globalization and its consequences is an intriguing concept for a novel. Having grown up with no internet and enjoying sending snail mail to family and friends, actually miss the anticipation of receiving a letter in the mail. Today it is 99% electronic, which can be erased with the touch of a button. In many ways, the internet provides conveniences that allow life to be lived at ease. In other regards, the connectivity fostered by the internet has reduced actual human communication to next to nothing. When Western Africa suffers from the cable break, Fennell has to speak with a hotel receptionist. Later he writes an actual letter to his son. These events humanize Fennell as a character and force him to cut down on the mysteries surrounding his life. McCann is a writer’s writer. He most likely wrote Twist as his personal response to the pandemic and the consequences humanity has to live with going forward. During those years we as a people became even more dependent on internet usage, for better or for worse. These are real life issues that humans have to live with as we move even deeper into the internet age when fewer and fewer people remember life without its existence. The twisting kaleidoscope of humanity offers much to contemplate as we have reached the quarter mark in the 21st century. Few writers discuss these issues causing readers to pause for thought like Colum McCann, who is in a writing category of his own.
4.5 star range, rating against his other books
The average person believes that text messages arrive at their destination via satellites installed in space. These messages actually travel in tubes on the sea floor, arriving at their destination within seconds. What if one of these cables happened to snap? That is the premise of the new novel written by Colum McCann, one of the masters of literary prose in this current generation. McCann is no stranger to the concept of a shrinking world due to the migration of people from one point to another. He addressed this very idea in TransAtlantic. In Twist, named for the melding of cables that carry messages along the sea floor, McCann returns to discuss the connectivity of people throughout the world, this time va the internet. In this day and age, people are plugged into their devices 24/7. When one’s wi-fi is down, as it was in my house for a good thirty six hours earlier this week, people get testy and begin to panic because most of life’s mundane tasks now require internet access. Should a cable carrying the world’s email and text messages break underneath the sea, entire countries could stand to lose their internet service, sending these countries into pandemonium. This is the scenario that McCann presents to his readers in Twist.
Anthony Fennell is a struggling middle-aged writer who has not published a novel in years. He was married once to a Chilean woman named Irenea and has a teenaged son named Joli, but Fennell has not seen either in ages, Joli having all but no memories of his father. Fennell gets a tip from an e-zine editor that the next big story is sea floor internet cables, and he is asked to write a feature article about how the cables work. Having nothing to lose at this point, Fennell travels from Dublin to Cape Town in search of a scoop, anything to jump start his career. The narrative is told from Fennell’s point of view in flashback, as he contemplates the events in this novel, what could have been done differently to preserve relationships between people. Few writers blend fiction into reality like McCann. In his author q&a at the end of TransAtlantic, he speaks of fiction versus truth and the work put in to bringing characters to life. The example he states is that just because Scout Finch only exists in a book does not mean that she is not real. As in this interview and in McCann’s other books, the events in Twist will give me pause for thought. The internet, relationships in real life and only over the web are issues that most of us encounter on a daily basis. McCann brings his fiction close to reality by addressing real world issues, pausing readers to think while still savoring his words.
In order to kickstart his career and get off the bottle, Fennell interviews a free diver named John Conway who is also an Irishman. As we find later, Conway is a master of disguise, a conman. He is also the ship commander of the Georges Lecointe, a ship tasked with finding three cable breaks of the coast of West Africa. He crew’s job is to find the breaks and repair the cables before the entire world goes dark of information. Fennell gets special permission to join the crew even if it means spending two months at sea. At this point in his career, he has nothing to lose and decides to follow the story. Conway is not easy to read. He has his own secrets and gaps in his existence, but it is obvious that he feels more comfortable in water than he does on land, reaching meditative states in his free dives that last nearly ten minutes. While commandeering the Georges Lecointe, Conway contemplates his own relationship with his partner Zanele and her two children who aren’t his but for all practical purposes are. Zanele is off to London to perform in a new interpretation of Waiting for Godot. This role could define her career and make her a star but it would also mean trading in the life of a diver for a just as purposeful one on land. Conway closes himself off to people and focuses on his job while Fennell wonders about Zanele and the twisting kaleidoscope relationship between the two of them. Even though he has been told not to write about the actress, interpersonal relationships appeal more to Fennell than repairing undersea cables. He contemplates his own relationship with his son, and, like Conway, just wants to get the job done and go home.
McCann notes that the story is about Fennell, Conway, and Zanele. All three are intriguing personas who have too many secrets that do not appear in print. Even though Fennell is the narrator, there is much to his life that readers never find out. As the seamen repair the internet cables allowing for worldwide communication to resume, Fennell crafts his article while also deciding what words to write to his son in an attempt to reopen channels of communication. He notes that he will just send a text because that is how teenagers communicate today; that text will travel in a tube along the bed of the sea and arrive to Chile within seconds. How fascinating. Fennell is yet another middle aged man to me who has come a crossroads in his life. The intriguing characters are Conway and Zanele, and McCann tantalizes readers with tidbits of information about their past and present lives while leaving out elements of their past that define who they are. Readers are left hanging and thinking about who these characters are exactly. What lead a South African and Irish citizen to meet in Key West, and how will the distance between them affect their budding relationship? Thankfully the distance between them is negligible due to the presence of the internet. How Conway and Zanele navigate this relationship over the years arriving at the events in this novel remain a mystery to readers. In the end we can only speculate as Fennell attempts to piece together lives in order to have closure, allowing his own life at a crossroads to move forward.
Globalization and its consequences is an intriguing concept for a novel. Having grown up with no internet and enjoying sending snail mail to family and friends, actually miss the anticipation of receiving a letter in the mail. Today it is 99% electronic, which can be erased with the touch of a button. In many ways, the internet provides conveniences that allow life to be lived at ease. In other regards, the connectivity fostered by the internet has reduced actual human communication to next to nothing. When Western Africa suffers from the cable break, Fennell has to speak with a hotel receptionist. Later he writes an actual letter to his son. These events humanize Fennell as a character and force him to cut down on the mysteries surrounding his life. McCann is a writer’s writer. He most likely wrote Twist as his personal response to the pandemic and the consequences humanity has to live with going forward. During those years we as a people became even more dependent on internet usage, for better or for worse. These are real life issues that humans have to live with as we move even deeper into the internet age when fewer and fewer people remember life without its existence. The twisting kaleidoscope of humanity offers much to contemplate as we have reached the quarter mark in the 21st century. Few writers discuss these issues causing readers to pause for thought like Colum McCann, who is in a writing category of his own.
4.5 star range, rating against his other books
March 22, 2025
In 2009, Colum McCann published a curious book called “Let the Great World Spin” that had everybody looking up. The novel, which went on to win both a National Book Award and the International Dublin Literary Award, presents several apparently disparate stories while a tightrope-walker modeled after Philippe Petit tiptoes between the twin towers on a wire.
Fifteen years later, McCann is back traversing a much longer, more fragile wire. But now, it’s not high over our heads; it’s running along the bottom of the ocean. The line that winds through “Twist” is a transcontinental fiber-optic cable that carries the great world’s messages, news, images, voices and ideas at the speed of light.
The narrator, Irishman Anthony Fennell, introduces himself as a minor novelist and occasional playwright who needs to shake off the lethargy that’s atrophied his talent. At 47, his life has not been going well. His career is dormant. He hasn’t spoken to his teenage son in years. “How long,” he wonders, “had I been walking around in the same set of clothes?”
Hoping to arrest his descent into alcoholism, he accepts an assignment from a magazine editor to write about deep-sea cable-repair operations. That technical subject sounds likely to inspire more drinking — even Anthony admits, “I had no interest in cables” — but he’s determined to deliver “a story about connection, about grace, about repair.”
A more skeptical magazine editor might have pulled the plug right there at that first hint of grandiloquence. Instead, Anthony flies to Cape Town with a generous budget and waits. The moment a major cable snaps off the west coast of Africa, he’ll be ready to....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Fifteen years later, McCann is back traversing a much longer, more fragile wire. But now, it’s not high over our heads; it’s running along the bottom of the ocean. The line that winds through “Twist” is a transcontinental fiber-optic cable that carries the great world’s messages, news, images, voices and ideas at the speed of light.
The narrator, Irishman Anthony Fennell, introduces himself as a minor novelist and occasional playwright who needs to shake off the lethargy that’s atrophied his talent. At 47, his life has not been going well. His career is dormant. He hasn’t spoken to his teenage son in years. “How long,” he wonders, “had I been walking around in the same set of clothes?”
Hoping to arrest his descent into alcoholism, he accepts an assignment from a magazine editor to write about deep-sea cable-repair operations. That technical subject sounds likely to inspire more drinking — even Anthony admits, “I had no interest in cables” — but he’s determined to deliver “a story about connection, about grace, about repair.”
A more skeptical magazine editor might have pulled the plug right there at that first hint of grandiloquence. Instead, Anthony flies to Cape Town with a generous budget and waits. The moment a major cable snaps off the west coast of Africa, he’ll be ready to....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
September 30, 2025
Here's a novel that is both hypnotic and riveting: not a page turner, but that's because you will find yourself lingering over Colum McCann's precise, thoughtful prose, and the rhythmic beauty of his sentences. The plot? A journalist who's floundering travels to the ocean off West Africa to cover a boat and a mysterious engineer searching for the underground cables that carry the world's information -- the meaningful and the ludicrous that appears on our computers every moment of every day -- because one (or more ) has been severed. Spend a few hours with this treasure and you'll find yourself looking at both the depths of the ocean and the depths of our computer addictions a little bit differently.
May 8, 2025
This is such a powerful, confusing, beautiful, multilayered, and unique book--in addition to the prodigious research that underpins it--that I have to give it 5 stars.
Reviewers have compared this novel to "The Great Gatsby" because the narrator (a has-been Irish journalist and playwright named Anthony Fennell) is secondary to the mysterious and charismatic man he is tagging after (an Irish ship captain named John Conway). But I think it's more like Gatsby combined with "Heart of Darkness" and "Moby Dick," with the movie "Apocalypse Now" running throughout.
Moreover, it's really three books intertwined in one, the way that hair-thin wires are intertwined in the underwater cables that form the skeleton of this story.
The first two-thirds of the book focuses on Fennell's newest magazine assignment: To join Conway's ship in order to describe how the crew repairs the cables that carry the electronic signals the world relies on. This is a detailed and fascinating narrative. Drama is inherent in the seeming impossibility of a finding something not much larger than a needle in the endless waters of a fighting ocean.
Both Conway and Fennell slowly reveal backstories of failed relationships and zigzagging careers, along with a constant, underlying loneliness.
As the ship moves along the western coast of Africa, more troubling aspects of Conway peek through. Maybe his name isn't Conway. Maybe his relationship with the black South African actress Zanele isn't so solid. Her children actually aren't his. What is he looking for, as he stands on the deck -- "some sort of green light out there for him," as Fennell puts it? (Shades of Gatsby and the light on Daisy's dock, indeed.) What was Conway doing, all those years before he captained the Georges Lecointe?
Abruptly, the book changes in the last section. Now, Fennell is writing what he imagines Conway did and thought in what were, presumably, his last few days alive. Now, bigger philosophical ideas take center stage. Maybe true success doesn't lie in repairing the crucial cables, but rather, in cutting them apart, to sever humanity's overreliance on wired unreality.
My only complaint is that Fennell is a fairly lousy reporter. He lets slip too many opportunities to push Conway and also Zanele, to ask follow-up questions. (Then again, that could be intentional.)
My head is still swirling. This book piles a lot into less than 250 pages--just as those vulnerable undersea cables carry so much from place to place.
Reviewers have compared this novel to "The Great Gatsby" because the narrator (a has-been Irish journalist and playwright named Anthony Fennell) is secondary to the mysterious and charismatic man he is tagging after (an Irish ship captain named John Conway). But I think it's more like Gatsby combined with "Heart of Darkness" and "Moby Dick," with the movie "Apocalypse Now" running throughout.
Moreover, it's really three books intertwined in one, the way that hair-thin wires are intertwined in the underwater cables that form the skeleton of this story.
The first two-thirds of the book focuses on Fennell's newest magazine assignment: To join Conway's ship in order to describe how the crew repairs the cables that carry the electronic signals the world relies on. This is a detailed and fascinating narrative. Drama is inherent in the seeming impossibility of a finding something not much larger than a needle in the endless waters of a fighting ocean.
Both Conway and Fennell slowly reveal backstories of failed relationships and zigzagging careers, along with a constant, underlying loneliness.
As the ship moves along the western coast of Africa, more troubling aspects of Conway peek through. Maybe his name isn't Conway. Maybe his relationship with the black South African actress Zanele isn't so solid. Her children actually aren't his. What is he looking for, as he stands on the deck -- "some sort of green light out there for him," as Fennell puts it? (Shades of Gatsby and the light on Daisy's dock, indeed.) What was Conway doing, all those years before he captained the Georges Lecointe?
Abruptly, the book changes in the last section. Now, Fennell is writing what he imagines Conway did and thought in what were, presumably, his last few days alive. Now, bigger philosophical ideas take center stage. Maybe true success doesn't lie in repairing the crucial cables, but rather, in cutting them apart, to sever humanity's overreliance on wired unreality.
My only complaint is that Fennell is a fairly lousy reporter. He lets slip too many opportunities to push Conway and also Zanele, to ask follow-up questions. (Then again, that could be intentional.)
My head is still swirling. This book piles a lot into less than 250 pages--just as those vulnerable undersea cables carry so much from place to place.
April 26, 2025
3,5🌟
TWIST - eine unerwartete Wendung in der Handlung eines Buches aber auch Zusammengedrehtes, Knäuel, Verflechtung. Im neuen Roman von Colum McCann geht es um Beides.
Anthony Fennell geht 2019 in Kapstadt an Bord eines Reparaturschiffs für Kabelbrüche in der Tiefsee. Diese Tiefseekabel leiten die globalen Datenflüsse und sind ständig gefährdet durch Krieg, Terrorismus oder durch Naturereignisse.
Er soll in einer Reportage über dieses weltumspannende Verbindungsnetz berichten, durch das all unsere Informationen laufen. Für Fennell, die große Chance seinem eintönigen Leben und seiner Alkoholsucht zu entkommen.
Auf dem Schiff trifft er auf den Missionschef Conway und lernt auch dessen Frau Zanele kennen.
Es passieren viele merkwürdige Dinge, Anschläge werden verübt und nicht nur auf die Tiefseekabel.
Gibt es Kollaborateure? Was hat Conway in den fehlenden vier Jahren seines Lebenslaufs gemacht?
Auf den ersten Blick geht's um die Reparaturarbeiten der Tiefseekabel.
Nach anfänglich langwierigen 75 Seiten entwickelt sich diese Geschichte langsam in einen Abenteuerroman, der aber eher unspektakulär bleibt und nur ab und an richtig spannend ist.
Vielmehr geht es um Zwischenmenschlichkeit, verschiedene Verhaltensweisen, die menschliche Psyche.
Die Charaktere der Protagonisten/innen machen diesen guten Roman aus.
Conway zerrissen, Zanele betrügerisch und Fennell unbeholfen und einfältig?
Eine atmosphärisch dichte und lebensnahe Geschichte mit einer klaren und ausdrucksvollen Sprache.
" Colum McCann erzählt von der Zerrissenheit unserer Zeit, den erfolgreichen und erfolglosen Reparaturversuchen und der Verletzlichkeit unserer Welt. Der Geist von Joseph Conrad schwebt über dem Roman, aber hier liegt das Herz der Finsternis auf dem Grund des Ozeans." Salman Rushdie
Mein erster, aber nicht mein letzter Roman von diesem Autor!
TWIST - eine unerwartete Wendung in der Handlung eines Buches aber auch Zusammengedrehtes, Knäuel, Verflechtung. Im neuen Roman von Colum McCann geht es um Beides.
Anthony Fennell geht 2019 in Kapstadt an Bord eines Reparaturschiffs für Kabelbrüche in der Tiefsee. Diese Tiefseekabel leiten die globalen Datenflüsse und sind ständig gefährdet durch Krieg, Terrorismus oder durch Naturereignisse.
Er soll in einer Reportage über dieses weltumspannende Verbindungsnetz berichten, durch das all unsere Informationen laufen. Für Fennell, die große Chance seinem eintönigen Leben und seiner Alkoholsucht zu entkommen.
Auf dem Schiff trifft er auf den Missionschef Conway und lernt auch dessen Frau Zanele kennen.
Es passieren viele merkwürdige Dinge, Anschläge werden verübt und nicht nur auf die Tiefseekabel.
Gibt es Kollaborateure? Was hat Conway in den fehlenden vier Jahren seines Lebenslaufs gemacht?
Auf den ersten Blick geht's um die Reparaturarbeiten der Tiefseekabel.
Nach anfänglich langwierigen 75 Seiten entwickelt sich diese Geschichte langsam in einen Abenteuerroman, der aber eher unspektakulär bleibt und nur ab und an richtig spannend ist.
Vielmehr geht es um Zwischenmenschlichkeit, verschiedene Verhaltensweisen, die menschliche Psyche.
Die Charaktere der Protagonisten/innen machen diesen guten Roman aus.
Conway zerrissen, Zanele betrügerisch und Fennell unbeholfen und einfältig?
Eine atmosphärisch dichte und lebensnahe Geschichte mit einer klaren und ausdrucksvollen Sprache.
" Colum McCann erzählt von der Zerrissenheit unserer Zeit, den erfolgreichen und erfolglosen Reparaturversuchen und der Verletzlichkeit unserer Welt. Der Geist von Joseph Conrad schwebt über dem Roman, aber hier liegt das Herz der Finsternis auf dem Grund des Ozeans." Salman Rushdie
Mein erster, aber nicht mein letzter Roman von diesem Autor!
April 8, 2025
In 2019, Anthony Fennell is given the assignment of writing a magazine article about the work of the men who repair the underwater cables that transmit the information that runs today’s world. He travels to South Africa where he meets John Conway who agrees to let him sail with his crew on their next repair mission. Fennell also meets Conway’s lover, the South African actress, Zanele. She is about to head to England to appear in a play. The book is written from Fennell’s point of view, as he attempts to tell the story of Conway. “I am not sure that anybody, anywhere, is truly aware of what lay at the core of Conway and the era he, and we, lived through — it was a time of enormous greed and foolish longing and, in the end, unfathomable isolation.”
The writing here was lovely, but ultimately I thought that the author left too many gaps in the characterization of Conway and Zanele. Conway was meant to be a mysterious shape shifter, but even so I would have liked to have been given some clue into his inner life. A section near the end of the book shifts to a description of Conway’s activities after the cable is repaired, but we still get no hints about why he is doing these things, which frankly make no sense at all. The book was also kind of a jumble of issues - middle aged angst, lack of connection, ocean pollution, terrorism, Covid, etc.
I’ve had mixed experiences with this author’s books but some, like “Apeirogon”, “Thirteen Ways of Looking” and “Dancer” are so good that I will keep reading anything he writes. I also like the way that he never repeats himself. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
The writing here was lovely, but ultimately I thought that the author left too many gaps in the characterization of Conway and Zanele. Conway was meant to be a mysterious shape shifter, but even so I would have liked to have been given some clue into his inner life. A section near the end of the book shifts to a description of Conway’s activities after the cable is repaired, but we still get no hints about why he is doing these things, which frankly make no sense at all. The book was also kind of a jumble of issues - middle aged angst, lack of connection, ocean pollution, terrorism, Covid, etc.
I’ve had mixed experiences with this author’s books but some, like “Apeirogon”, “Thirteen Ways of Looking” and “Dancer” are so good that I will keep reading anything he writes. I also like the way that he never repeats himself. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
March 29, 2025
Review published in Sunday, March 22, 2025 edition of Charleston Gazette Mail
TWIST by Colum McCann, March 25, 2025, Random House, 256 pages.
Colum McCann, author of the seminal LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN (winner of the National Book Award, and a truly fantastic book) and Oscar nominee (for a short film - I did not know this, but found out when I was double checking the page count on this novel, and on the very day after this year’s Academy Awards. For those keeping track, Adrien Brody is still talking.) returns to his Irish roots here with main character Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright. He is assigned a story about the underwater cables that carry all the information of the world in tiny, fiber optic tubes and how they sometimes break, thousands of feet below the sea: “Our lives, even the unruptured ones, bounce around on the seafloor.”
Fennell travels to the west coast of Africa, where he learns about the people who repair these cables and he meets another Irishman, John Conway, a higher-up chief of mission on a cable repair ship. Conway is an enigmatic engineer and a free diver capable of reaching unbelievable depths. He’s in love with actress Zanele, who is preparing to travel to London, where she’ll appear in a production of “Waiting for Godot” - which will serve as a metaphor for climate change.
The cable has broken due to a catastrophic flood in the Congo. It has already caused a lack of Wi-Fi and massive internet outage in South Africa. If another cable would break, all of Africa would break. Everything around the world would start to slow down. The disaster would be beyond description. The cable stretches from London to Cape Town in a canyon 13,000 feet deep. These are the things on which the world balances.
We know within the first thirty or so pages what will happen. It is how we get there that is key.
Both Fennell and Conway have issues with alcohol. For Fennell, who has a sixteen year old son in Chile he hasn’t written to in five years, “it was a time of enormous greed and foolish longing and, in the end, unfathomable isolation.”
While at sea, the men face many fundamental questions about life, love and, yes, connection. In an incredibly fractured world, are we able to make connections any longer, when things become broken, or are the ruptures permanent?
In the end there are three breaks that must be repaired, which means the crew and Fennell will be at sea for weeks, maybe longer. Days of traveling, due to each breach, then more days of looking for the breaks, which are incredibly difficult to pinpoint. As the first break is being repaired, tragedy strikes in London, but no one can leave the ship, so Conway remains.
Ultimately the book also covers narrative, and truth - the stories we tell and what is true within them. It reads almost like a thriller and is another excellent book by McCann.
TWIST by Colum McCann, March 25, 2025, Random House, 256 pages.
Colum McCann, author of the seminal LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN (winner of the National Book Award, and a truly fantastic book) and Oscar nominee (for a short film - I did not know this, but found out when I was double checking the page count on this novel, and on the very day after this year’s Academy Awards. For those keeping track, Adrien Brody is still talking.) returns to his Irish roots here with main character Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright. He is assigned a story about the underwater cables that carry all the information of the world in tiny, fiber optic tubes and how they sometimes break, thousands of feet below the sea: “Our lives, even the unruptured ones, bounce around on the seafloor.”
Fennell travels to the west coast of Africa, where he learns about the people who repair these cables and he meets another Irishman, John Conway, a higher-up chief of mission on a cable repair ship. Conway is an enigmatic engineer and a free diver capable of reaching unbelievable depths. He’s in love with actress Zanele, who is preparing to travel to London, where she’ll appear in a production of “Waiting for Godot” - which will serve as a metaphor for climate change.
The cable has broken due to a catastrophic flood in the Congo. It has already caused a lack of Wi-Fi and massive internet outage in South Africa. If another cable would break, all of Africa would break. Everything around the world would start to slow down. The disaster would be beyond description. The cable stretches from London to Cape Town in a canyon 13,000 feet deep. These are the things on which the world balances.
We know within the first thirty or so pages what will happen. It is how we get there that is key.
Both Fennell and Conway have issues with alcohol. For Fennell, who has a sixteen year old son in Chile he hasn’t written to in five years, “it was a time of enormous greed and foolish longing and, in the end, unfathomable isolation.”
While at sea, the men face many fundamental questions about life, love and, yes, connection. In an incredibly fractured world, are we able to make connections any longer, when things become broken, or are the ruptures permanent?
In the end there are three breaks that must be repaired, which means the crew and Fennell will be at sea for weeks, maybe longer. Days of traveling, due to each breach, then more days of looking for the breaks, which are incredibly difficult to pinpoint. As the first break is being repaired, tragedy strikes in London, but no one can leave the ship, so Conway remains.
Ultimately the book also covers narrative, and truth - the stories we tell and what is true within them. It reads almost like a thriller and is another excellent book by McCann.
June 16, 2025
“Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.”
Twist is the latest explosive novel by Colum McCann, this time exploring the hidden world deep under the ocean of cables and fiber-optic tubes that carry the world’s information. It is also a metaphorically told tale of the brokenness of our time and the vulnerability of our world in this digital age.
At the heart of the story is an Irish journalist and playwright, Anthony Fennell, assigned to cover what happens when these fiber-optic cables break, often at unfathomable depths on the ocean floor. This journey takes Fennell to the west coast of Africa to Cape Town where the Georges Lecointe was docked. It is here that he meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on the cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is also a skilled engineer and a free diver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. It seems both men are escaping demons from their past that become more intense as the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, as each realizes that the cables they are seeking to repair may carry news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea they are forced to examine the most elemental questions about our existence including love and belonging as well as the perils of our severed connections. This is a dazzling and compelling novel as only a master storyteller such as Colum McCann can spin in this delicately layered narrative.
April 3, 2025
This book explores the world of connections and communications – both interpersonal and physical. Protagonist Anthony Fennell is an Irish writer researching an article about the undersea cables that provide the infrastructure for global communications. He travels to South Africa where he meets the Chief of Mission of a repair ship, John Conway, a fellow Irishman, who introduces Fennell to his wife, Zanele, a black South African actress, and their twins. It is narrated in first person by Fennell looking back on what happened. The storyline follows Fennell’s interactions (and growing obsession) with Conway, their experiences with repairs of breaks in the underseas cables, Zanele’s experiences in London, and a mystery related to Conway.
It is a beautifully written literary work that addresses timely and relevant themes. Many (if not most) people are unaware how much of our global communication depends on these undersea fiberoptic cables, and that breaks in them could have significant consequences. It is filled with literary references, which I enjoyed discovering. I think this work may be a modern retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. At the very least, there are many allusions and parallels.
I think the author does a fabulous job of drawing links between the characters’ personal stories and the work they are performing – both Conway at sea and Zanele as an actor. It comments on the importance of direct personal relationships, which are dwindling in this age of technology. It contains elements of philosophy while telling a compelling story and commenting on the state of the world. I loved it.
It is a beautifully written literary work that addresses timely and relevant themes. Many (if not most) people are unaware how much of our global communication depends on these undersea fiberoptic cables, and that breaks in them could have significant consequences. It is filled with literary references, which I enjoyed discovering. I think this work may be a modern retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. At the very least, there are many allusions and parallels.
I think the author does a fabulous job of drawing links between the characters’ personal stories and the work they are performing – both Conway at sea and Zanele as an actor. It comments on the importance of direct personal relationships, which are dwindling in this age of technology. It contains elements of philosophy while telling a compelling story and commenting on the state of the world. I loved it.
June 23, 2025
Highlights:
1. Sehr vielschichtige Charaktere, die in all ihrer Ambiguität gezeigt werden. Erwartungen, Klischees werden durchbrochen. Bei Fennell, dem Journalisten (und gescheiterten Schriftsteller) spielt McCann durchaus mit Klischees, der trockene Alkoholiker, der von einer Kiste Rotwein träumt und früher mal ein neuer Hemingway werden wollte, aber er lernt vieles während seiner Zusammenarbeit mit Conway. Bei Conway stehen Unberechenbarkeit und Undurchschaubarkeit auf der Tagesordnung, gleichzeitig bildet er das stabile, kompetente Rückgrat einer heiklen Mission, seine Besatzung vertraut ihm blind.
2. Was ich so oder ähnlich noch nie gelesen habe, sind Conways Freitauchgänge, atemberaubend im doppelten Sinne, inhaltlich und sprachlich.
3. Generell: sprachlich sehr gut und flüssig zu lesen und immer wieder mit Formulierungskapriolen gewürzt, die einem Augen und Geist öffnen.
4. ich finde das ganze Setting sehr interessant, am Schiff, das Warten (warten auf Godot steht wohl nicht zufällig auf Zaneles Spielplan in Brighton, wo Conways Lebensgefährtin ein Engagement als Theaterregisseurin hat), die sparsame aber sehr eindrucksvolle Action.
Mir hat das alles gut gefallen. Im Mittelteil gab es zwar durchaus ein paar Längen, die aber irgendwie auch ins Gesamtbild passen.
Den Rest lasse ich mal sacken und werde es vielleicht noch mal hier aktualisieren, aber mein unmittelbarer Eindruck war ein 5🌟 Roman, übrigens mein erster Roman des Autors und wahrscheinlich nicht der letzte.
1. Sehr vielschichtige Charaktere, die in all ihrer Ambiguität gezeigt werden. Erwartungen, Klischees werden durchbrochen. Bei Fennell, dem Journalisten (und gescheiterten Schriftsteller) spielt McCann durchaus mit Klischees, der trockene Alkoholiker, der von einer Kiste Rotwein träumt und früher mal ein neuer Hemingway werden wollte, aber er lernt vieles während seiner Zusammenarbeit mit Conway. Bei Conway stehen Unberechenbarkeit und Undurchschaubarkeit auf der Tagesordnung, gleichzeitig bildet er das stabile, kompetente Rückgrat einer heiklen Mission, seine Besatzung vertraut ihm blind.
2. Was ich so oder ähnlich noch nie gelesen habe, sind Conways Freitauchgänge, atemberaubend im doppelten Sinne, inhaltlich und sprachlich.
3. Generell: sprachlich sehr gut und flüssig zu lesen und immer wieder mit Formulierungskapriolen gewürzt, die einem Augen und Geist öffnen.
4. ich finde das ganze Setting sehr interessant, am Schiff, das Warten (warten auf Godot steht wohl nicht zufällig auf Zaneles Spielplan in Brighton, wo Conways Lebensgefährtin ein Engagement als Theaterregisseurin hat), die sparsame aber sehr eindrucksvolle Action.
Mir hat das alles gut gefallen. Im Mittelteil gab es zwar durchaus ein paar Längen, die aber irgendwie auch ins Gesamtbild passen.
Den Rest lasse ich mal sacken und werde es vielleicht noch mal hier aktualisieren, aber mein unmittelbarer Eindruck war ein 5🌟 Roman, übrigens mein erster Roman des Autors und wahrscheinlich nicht der letzte.
July 20, 2025
When I read a book, I usually judge it on three things: the writing, the plot, and whether it made me think or feel something.
Colum McCann can definitely write—Twist is full of vivid, atmospheric prose that really sets the mood. I also thought the idea of the delicate undersea fibre-optic cables symbolising our fragile human connections was pretty clever. But honestly? I just never clicked with the characters. It felt like a lot of telling rather than showing, so the emotion didn’t really hit—and I ended up feeling a bit detached.
The story: Fennell, a washed-up journalist, heads out on a cable-repair ship to write a feature, but ends up on a deeper dive into connection, loss, and what keeps us all wired together.
Colum McCann can definitely write—Twist is full of vivid, atmospheric prose that really sets the mood. I also thought the idea of the delicate undersea fibre-optic cables symbolising our fragile human connections was pretty clever. But honestly? I just never clicked with the characters. It felt like a lot of telling rather than showing, so the emotion didn’t really hit—and I ended up feeling a bit detached.
The story: Fennell, a washed-up journalist, heads out on a cable-repair ship to write a feature, but ends up on a deeper dive into connection, loss, and what keeps us all wired together.
April 1, 2025
I would have DNF'd this book if I didn't have to read it for a challenge. It was a challenge alright. This book bored me then confused me then made me angry because I was wasting my time reading it. I couldn't care less about the protagonist. He was a non-entity. The start of Part Two got exciting for two point two seconds and then slacked off again. Don't ask me what the point of the story was, I have no idea. I don't know what I was supposed to be feeling. I couldn't even tell you who this book is for. I'm only grateful it was short.
March 15, 2025
Anthony Fennell is suffering from prolonged writers’ block, so when a magazine asks him to write an article about how breaks in the underwater cables that carry internet signals are repaired, he takes on the assignment. He is sent to Cape Town where he meets Conway, the man who leads the repair team, and Conway’s partner, Zanele, a theatre actor/director. Fennell muses philosophically on broken relationships while waiting for the call to go aboard to repair the cable.
The metaphors are both thick and shallow in this one – quite an achievement. Laid on with a trowel and yet fading into insubstantiality before our very eyes. The writing is style over substance, and sometimes gets so carried away with the style that it ceases to have any real meaning or conjure up any real image in the reader’s mind.
I stuck it out to past the halfway point, though it was a struggle. At that point I still had no clear idea of the point the book was trying to make. Is it about climate change? Our over-reliance on technology? Relationships? Alcoholism? Mental health? The inability to really know other humans? All of the above? None of the above? Not every book has to have a point, of course, but if there’s no point then there must be a plot and the plot of this one has yet to emerge. I’m afraid I decided to jump overboard. I have no idea, at 54%, what direction we’re heading in and I have little interest in my travelling companions, so I won’t regret not getting to the destination. It probably deserves more, but since I can’t bring myself to finish it, one star is all it gets.
The metaphors are both thick and shallow in this one – quite an achievement. Laid on with a trowel and yet fading into insubstantiality before our very eyes. The writing is style over substance, and sometimes gets so carried away with the style that it ceases to have any real meaning or conjure up any real image in the reader’s mind.
I stuck it out to past the halfway point, though it was a struggle. At that point I still had no clear idea of the point the book was trying to make. Is it about climate change? Our over-reliance on technology? Relationships? Alcoholism? Mental health? The inability to really know other humans? All of the above? None of the above? Not every book has to have a point, of course, but if there’s no point then there must be a plot and the plot of this one has yet to emerge. I’m afraid I decided to jump overboard. I have no idea, at 54%, what direction we’re heading in and I have little interest in my travelling companions, so I won’t regret not getting to the destination. It probably deserves more, but since I can’t bring myself to finish it, one star is all it gets.
April 21, 2025
Once again, Colum McCann has knocked my socks off with his brilliant, emotional and thought-provoking fiction. And, once again, he combines a completely new-to-me subject – the fact that all of our digital information is travelling through glass tubes at the bottom of the world’s oceans – with themes that are universal.
The story is simple enough: the narrator is a struggling middle aged journalist assigned to cover the ships sent to repair these cables when they break and the flow of information stops.
That’s the end of describing this book in any simple way. The rest is a very heady exploration of connections - the depths we go to seek them, their frailty and the possibility of repairing them once they are severed.
"So much of who we are is who we cannot be. We flatter ourselves when we think we can become something entirely new."
McCann covers so much emotional and intellectual and geographic territory in under 250 pages, that I sometimes found myself breathless. He’s pushing the boundaries of how hard I want to think while I”m reading but so smart about incorporating the touchstones that have marked our lives, including 9/11 and the COVID pandemic, which provide some emotional ballast. This novel is ugly and beautiful and I loved it.
“This is the world as it is," he said. "Impossible. And fucking beautiful."
The story is simple enough: the narrator is a struggling middle aged journalist assigned to cover the ships sent to repair these cables when they break and the flow of information stops.
That’s the end of describing this book in any simple way. The rest is a very heady exploration of connections - the depths we go to seek them, their frailty and the possibility of repairing them once they are severed.
"So much of who we are is who we cannot be. We flatter ourselves when we think we can become something entirely new."
McCann covers so much emotional and intellectual and geographic territory in under 250 pages, that I sometimes found myself breathless. He’s pushing the boundaries of how hard I want to think while I”m reading but so smart about incorporating the touchstones that have marked our lives, including 9/11 and the COVID pandemic, which provide some emotional ballast. This novel is ugly and beautiful and I loved it.
“This is the world as it is," he said. "Impossible. And fucking beautiful."
May 5, 2025
After further consideration, I’ve decided to lower my rating just a bit—to 3.5 stars.
Twist involved quite an interesting storyline: An Irish journalist is assigned to cover a story about a cable repair ship that explores the seas along the African coast, searching for broken underwater cables. These cables house the tiny fibre-optic tubes that enable global communication to flow across the sea floor with lightning speed. Cables can break due to normal corrosion and deterioration, but most often the damage results from the activities of fishing trawlers and ships’ anchors. Occasionally, undersea earthquakes and landslides can contribute to the damage, and least often (but most concerning), the cables have been deliberately sabotaged.
Free-diving is another, more interesting (actually fascinating, to my mind) element of the story, and it was detailed with heart-pounding precision!😨 Overall, however, I felt certain things were not well enough explained. In some cases, I wanted a more extensive back-story that would, hopefully, help explain a couple of “WHY?”s.🤔 The writing, itself, was beyond reproach but, for me at least, this book fell just a little bit short.🤏
3.5 “Everyone–has–a–story” stars ⭐⭐⭐
Twist involved quite an interesting storyline: An Irish journalist is assigned to cover a story about a cable repair ship that explores the seas along the African coast, searching for broken underwater cables. These cables house the tiny fibre-optic tubes that enable global communication to flow across the sea floor with lightning speed. Cables can break due to normal corrosion and deterioration, but most often the damage results from the activities of fishing trawlers and ships’ anchors. Occasionally, undersea earthquakes and landslides can contribute to the damage, and least often (but most concerning), the cables have been deliberately sabotaged.
Free-diving is another, more interesting (actually fascinating, to my mind) element of the story, and it was detailed with heart-pounding precision!😨 Overall, however, I felt certain things were not well enough explained. In some cases, I wanted a more extensive back-story that would, hopefully, help explain a couple of “WHY?”s.🤔 The writing, itself, was beyond reproach but, for me at least, this book fell just a little bit short.🤏
3.5 “Everyone–has–a–story” stars ⭐⭐⭐
July 4, 2025
"We are all shards in the smash-up.
Our lives, even the unruptured ones, bounce around on the sea floor. For a while we might brush tenderly against one another, but eventually, and inevitably, we collide and splinter.
I am not here to make an elegy for John A. Conway, or to create a praise song for how he spent his days - we have all had our difficulties with the shape of the truth, and I am not going to claim myself as any exception. But others have tried to tell Conway's story and, so far as I know, they got it largely wrong. For the most part, he moved to quietly and without much fuss, but his was a lantern heart full of petrol, and when a match was put to it, it flared."
Masterfully written. The narrator describes Conway the same way Nick described Gatsby, and yet, much like Gatsby, Conway remains largely elusive. The narrative is one of a haunted loneliness, a desperate seeking of connection. Do I care about the repair of deep sea internet cables? No. And yet McCann manages to weave the plot effortlessly into the exploration of the (inner) lives of our characters - which is something I do very much care about - that I was actually invested in the whole cable thing by the end.
Our lives, even the unruptured ones, bounce around on the sea floor. For a while we might brush tenderly against one another, but eventually, and inevitably, we collide and splinter.
I am not here to make an elegy for John A. Conway, or to create a praise song for how he spent his days - we have all had our difficulties with the shape of the truth, and I am not going to claim myself as any exception. But others have tried to tell Conway's story and, so far as I know, they got it largely wrong. For the most part, he moved to quietly and without much fuss, but his was a lantern heart full of petrol, and when a match was put to it, it flared."
Masterfully written. The narrator describes Conway the same way Nick described Gatsby, and yet, much like Gatsby, Conway remains largely elusive. The narrative is one of a haunted loneliness, a desperate seeking of connection. Do I care about the repair of deep sea internet cables? No. And yet McCann manages to weave the plot effortlessly into the exploration of the (inner) lives of our characters - which is something I do very much care about - that I was actually invested in the whole cable thing by the end.
August 18, 2025
Twist is built on a brilliant premise. The break in a fiber optic cable, one of hundreds strewn across the oceans' floors, creates a minor regional crisis that could become a major international incident unless the break is found and repaired. Any internet-dependent communication—modern society itself, in other words—relies on 1.4 million kilometers of undersea cables that are in constant need of repair. Specialized teams of contractors chase around the unfathomable expanse of five oceans to retrieve the broken cables and repair them onboard.
One of these specialists is enigmatic Irishman John Conway, who lives in South Africa with his actress girlfriend, Zanele. A fellow Irishman, failed novelist Anthony Fennell, is hired to write a long-form article about John's latest mission: to find a repair a cable break somewhere off the west coast of Africa. Twist holds the promise of a literary thriller, where the race to find the break is secondary to the journey the characters undertake to heal the breaks within themselves.
I wanted to love this story, written by a writer I deeply esteem, who has so often taken my breath away with his wise and searing narrative. This one left me stranded at sea. Anthony Fennell, the writer, is—of course—an alcoholic, a limp foil for Conway's übermensch. Conway, an accomplished free diver, can hold his breath underwater for impossible amounts of time, has a stunningly beautiful partner and a past that whispers of espionage, terrorism or simply flight from a misbegotten past. I am reminded of Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby, an unreliable narrator who burnishes Tom and Daisy's lives with his own misplaced admiration. Fennell meets Zanele just briefly but becomes obsessed with her. Much of the narrative is devoted to Fennell wondering about the nature of Conway's relationship with the actress, who leaves for England with her two children to perform in a radical adaptation of Waiting for Godot.
I nearly let Twist go early on, unable to engage with Fennell's distant and laconic voice, but I kept on and was rewarded by the weeks Fennell spends at sea with Conway's crew. This glimpse into the vital but rarely-considered work of repair cable crews was mesmerizing. McCann lingers, introducing us to the crew members, letting us see Conway at work, creating poetic tension even in the highly technical details. It's cinematic in its intensity, this interplay of a locked-room setting on a small ship with tiny cabins: the seasickness, the storms, the search for a broken cable in the midst of the vast and unknowable ocean. All while contemplating that the world might be better off if these cables were all to break, disconnecting us from words, thoughts, invectives and imperative that seem to hold little but spite and antipathy.
McCann makes space for massive ideas in this slim novel: the fragility of our existence and that of our planet threatened by our insatiable domination, the irony of our hyperconnectivity, set against how little we know each other or ourselves. Yet the central characters are too remote. My concern for them was lost in the interior studiousness of McCann's prose that too often veered into abstract philosophizing. The subplot of Zanele's plight in the UK felt sewn on, not quite connected to the whole.
An uneven read. Beautiful, tense, fascinating and yet dispiriting and dissatisfying.
One of these specialists is enigmatic Irishman John Conway, who lives in South Africa with his actress girlfriend, Zanele. A fellow Irishman, failed novelist Anthony Fennell, is hired to write a long-form article about John's latest mission: to find a repair a cable break somewhere off the west coast of Africa. Twist holds the promise of a literary thriller, where the race to find the break is secondary to the journey the characters undertake to heal the breaks within themselves.
I wanted to love this story, written by a writer I deeply esteem, who has so often taken my breath away with his wise and searing narrative. This one left me stranded at sea. Anthony Fennell, the writer, is—of course—an alcoholic, a limp foil for Conway's übermensch. Conway, an accomplished free diver, can hold his breath underwater for impossible amounts of time, has a stunningly beautiful partner and a past that whispers of espionage, terrorism or simply flight from a misbegotten past. I am reminded of Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby, an unreliable narrator who burnishes Tom and Daisy's lives with his own misplaced admiration. Fennell meets Zanele just briefly but becomes obsessed with her. Much of the narrative is devoted to Fennell wondering about the nature of Conway's relationship with the actress, who leaves for England with her two children to perform in a radical adaptation of Waiting for Godot.
I nearly let Twist go early on, unable to engage with Fennell's distant and laconic voice, but I kept on and was rewarded by the weeks Fennell spends at sea with Conway's crew. This glimpse into the vital but rarely-considered work of repair cable crews was mesmerizing. McCann lingers, introducing us to the crew members, letting us see Conway at work, creating poetic tension even in the highly technical details. It's cinematic in its intensity, this interplay of a locked-room setting on a small ship with tiny cabins: the seasickness, the storms, the search for a broken cable in the midst of the vast and unknowable ocean. All while contemplating that the world might be better off if these cables were all to break, disconnecting us from words, thoughts, invectives and imperative that seem to hold little but spite and antipathy.
McCann makes space for massive ideas in this slim novel: the fragility of our existence and that of our planet threatened by our insatiable domination, the irony of our hyperconnectivity, set against how little we know each other or ourselves. Yet the central characters are too remote. My concern for them was lost in the interior studiousness of McCann's prose that too often veered into abstract philosophizing. The subplot of Zanele's plight in the UK felt sewn on, not quite connected to the whole.
An uneven read. Beautiful, tense, fascinating and yet dispiriting and dissatisfying.
November 29, 2024
Troubles of all sorts masquerading as progress. Violence of a malevolent force traversing generations. A famine of modern means, scalping hope from the bone like flees from tweed; oh, how catastrophic humanity lends itself to being. Through supple verse & hymns of classic veneration, what plagues a person most is what is unsaid, that which lives in the burrows of their heart. Yet, cataclysmic terror does not a good story make. A writer must pen from the putrid, must wander through the muck, reaching through the crisp pines for the hand of a stranger, asking them to listen, asking them to care.
What caught my eye & what held my gaze, was the cover art. Every little bit I found myself wandering back to the book’s page where I stared at the cover, eyes roaming over the listed genres & the character’s journey. Originally, I was conflicted about requesting this book. I have not hidden my reviews since I began writing them & so understand when an author or a Publishing House decides against the chance of fate; the coin toss that I might write 2,000 words of venom about their prized possession. There was, however, hope that I would receive a copy of this book.
I was hopeful because the main character appealed to me in a way I cannot quite explain. Anthony is in his middle age when we meet him & he is not altogether a man another person would trust, nor is he a character readers will learn to love.
In fact, I found that the hope I held festered in me, growing into anticipation; I needed to read this book. Now that the task has been completed, I wonder whether or not my hope was unfounded. I cannot say that all readers will appreciate the gentle tug of the plot, the ploy of the lost soul, nor the terrorism that is forgiven by those who miss the assailant. Regardless, I find myself wandering back down the dock, waiting to catch a glimpse of the waves that brought Anthony to the precipice of change.
In essence, this is a book about underwater cables. The main premise focuses on the Georges Lecointe ship & her mission to sail from South Africa to Ghana to fix a cable that has been severed. The narrative presents readers with a cast of characters, a crew of diverse men whose experiences assemble them on deck with a common goal. The story itself furrows brows with its slow pace & redundant reflections. A reader will be forgiven for wondering whether something of marvellous value will be presented as they flip one page after the other, in wait.
For readers who come upon this book hoping to find a mystery or longing to be met with a story that will riddle them with intrigue, McCann’s novel will not give them what they want. This is not a bad thing. I view this as an important distinction for what is written inside the bind is of value in its own right, though it does not cast a shadow to squander Pan’s. Rather, this book is an Odyssey the likes of which patient readers will appreciate for its secluded setting & raving madness.
Anthony, the main character, is a man who remembers the Troubles in Ireland; a man whose home was silent but for the nagging guilt that choked its inhabitants & the revulsive regret that capsized their beings. His decision to write a book about Conway came to him as he watched the man become a person led by a cause unheard by other ears.
For Anthony, bearing witness to a man with so much dialogue left unsaid, & so many days spent in intentional isolation, was curious. The two characters could be brothers or best friends, readers will note the similarities between the two as they pretend to forget from whence they came.
Here we too arrive at the precise moment of importance. This story revels in the pensiveness of belonging, & the turmoil of a place revolutionized by Church, State, & partisan. For Anthony, reminders of his childhood bring him a sickening nostalgia, whereas Conway acts as though he lives there still, in the moors near where his mother’s boat capsized.
It is intriguing to witness two characters mirror each other so profoundly. The relationship that they develop is built on their homeland. However, neither man seems eager to remind the other that they come from a land small in geography & suffocating in historical impacts.
I often found myself wondering if the men could have been true friends, had they met at another time, in another life. The story explores the downfall of Conway as he abandons the Georges Lecointe to pursue terrorism against the underground cables, leaving bombs attached which may—ideally—not impact or harm others but which could—quite probably—kill a person. By the end of the book, the reader has learnt that Conway was the perpetrator of his own demise. He died having dived to reach a cable off the Egyptian coast to break it apart, the blast leaving his carcass for the ocean life.
The author includes interesting tidbits about the logistics of underwater cables. The feeds drive our land-based communication & allow us to maintain some semblance of awareness about the world around us. What each character is left wondering is whether this is a positive reality for humanity.
Surely, at face value, our ability to communicate & transfer information with one another at such speed & with such frequency is a positive thing. The world has never before been so known to us & yet we are constantly faced with problems of our own making. What do we do about plastic pollution in the oceans & lakes? What happens when the glaciers melt? Are we supposed to know everything about the world or were we better off ignorant of our follies?
Anthony seems of the mind that awareness is a consequence of existence. In times of trouble, he mentally returns to things he has not thought about for years. This practice seems to soothe him as he wanders the world on the heels of great figures of change. Never does he question whether the words he writes should be penned or whether the words he says should be spoken.
In fact, Anthony, though a man of earnest intention, remains placated by the actions of others so much so that he has allowed his son to wander into the arms of others, rather than offering up his own. Will the reader fault him for this?
When exploring Anthony’s character one must wonder at the early days. A person is not who they are when we meet them without the moon’s company over many nights & sun’s warm watchful rays. Yet, few of us ever learn enough about one another to fully appreciate the journey of life.
While reading Anthony’s story, I felt conflicted. At times, he felt it in his ability to share more of himself than he would receive. In fact, he will never know the reader intimately, & will never have the chance to converse with the person consuming his story.
These chapters, more so these sections, were of particular importance because they lend themselves as explanations for both Anthony & Conway. Neither man will be fully transparent with anyone. I rather doubt there has come a time in their lives where they felt it was to their benefit to call to their experiences like art exhibited in a museum. I will not fault them for that.
Anthony’s small moments of vulnerability where he speaks truth to power, coining the tendrils of an un-beating tremor, will remind readers of the reality that besought the characters. There is certainly no need to excuse either man’s behaviour, they do not make excuses for their choices & I am rather inclined to believe that they would be distraught at the prospect of pity.
Yet, it is important to remember what sent Conway into the ocean’s depths & what led Anthony to isolate himself on a freight ship. Potentially, the gravity of their upbringing will be lost on the reader. Their need for a grand mystery of terror may supersede the calming tone of the truth; some people never escape the confines built inside them.
What I appreciated most about this novel was how simple it was. Men on the ocean repairing cables. Men on the ocean caught in the tidal waves of their burdens. That being said, I did find some moments annoying. Zenele was not a person who read to me as genuine. I suppose this is because everyone in the story felt so enamoured by her, that everything she said had a twang of falsehood.
Certainly, because the reader learns about her by proxy of Anthony, it is not surprising that I felt so conflicted about her character. However, as the story progressed, I felt that there were two truths. Zee was a person who adopted the role of other people, the roles built for make-believe, she voiced things that were not her words & was given praise for their delivery. I found her taunts about the guilt of humanity flawed & her deity-like essence pruned at the edges.
I will not pretend to have adored any character in this book, I rather doubt that was the author’s goal. However, the faults & flaws of the cast of primary & secondary characters felt authentic & though they may not have wanted to be transparent about themselves, they lived in truth, no matter the cost.
When I regard the characters for what they are & what they contributed to the story I welcome them all. The silent wandering legs aboard the ship, the silent prayers of longing for something different, the careful prodding for vulnerability faced with one another, & the reflection they saw in the mirror.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this story because it was enough of what it was to succeed at being what it hoped to become. The narrative studies the reality of access to information & the toll this has taken on humanity. Our inability to wander the grooves of awareness torments progress as we covet repetition redundantly.
The setting gathered a cloak of wet wallowing into the gore of each word, every memory a soggy state of affairs. The reader will choose whether they wish to regard this novel as the romanced tale of a man who wished no longer to know & forget the messages he could not send or, whether they wish to interpret the tale as a swan song of longing for an end, near & dear to their heart.
There will be no resolution that pleases the reader & their interpretations will vary. Should a person come across this story they will be met with the turbulent nature of the species & the journeys we undergo to be met with ourselves.
The numbing isolation of the truth can be met when the reader is prepared to settle on its existence. Coyly the author closes his story to fondle the airways he has yet to navigate; memories of a world he once knew. One day, the reader may come to find that Anthony, like many, has forgotten parts of himself in the past. Conway was perhaps attempting to set his countryman free from the rumbling nature of war that wiggled the doorhandle, cooing for entry into the green wide yonder of home.
Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, & Colum McCann for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
What caught my eye & what held my gaze, was the cover art. Every little bit I found myself wandering back to the book’s page where I stared at the cover, eyes roaming over the listed genres & the character’s journey. Originally, I was conflicted about requesting this book. I have not hidden my reviews since I began writing them & so understand when an author or a Publishing House decides against the chance of fate; the coin toss that I might write 2,000 words of venom about their prized possession. There was, however, hope that I would receive a copy of this book.
I was hopeful because the main character appealed to me in a way I cannot quite explain. Anthony is in his middle age when we meet him & he is not altogether a man another person would trust, nor is he a character readers will learn to love.
In fact, I found that the hope I held festered in me, growing into anticipation; I needed to read this book. Now that the task has been completed, I wonder whether or not my hope was unfounded. I cannot say that all readers will appreciate the gentle tug of the plot, the ploy of the lost soul, nor the terrorism that is forgiven by those who miss the assailant. Regardless, I find myself wandering back down the dock, waiting to catch a glimpse of the waves that brought Anthony to the precipice of change.
In essence, this is a book about underwater cables. The main premise focuses on the Georges Lecointe ship & her mission to sail from South Africa to Ghana to fix a cable that has been severed. The narrative presents readers with a cast of characters, a crew of diverse men whose experiences assemble them on deck with a common goal. The story itself furrows brows with its slow pace & redundant reflections. A reader will be forgiven for wondering whether something of marvellous value will be presented as they flip one page after the other, in wait.
For readers who come upon this book hoping to find a mystery or longing to be met with a story that will riddle them with intrigue, McCann’s novel will not give them what they want. This is not a bad thing. I view this as an important distinction for what is written inside the bind is of value in its own right, though it does not cast a shadow to squander Pan’s. Rather, this book is an Odyssey the likes of which patient readers will appreciate for its secluded setting & raving madness.
Anthony, the main character, is a man who remembers the Troubles in Ireland; a man whose home was silent but for the nagging guilt that choked its inhabitants & the revulsive regret that capsized their beings. His decision to write a book about Conway came to him as he watched the man become a person led by a cause unheard by other ears.
For Anthony, bearing witness to a man with so much dialogue left unsaid, & so many days spent in intentional isolation, was curious. The two characters could be brothers or best friends, readers will note the similarities between the two as they pretend to forget from whence they came.
Here we too arrive at the precise moment of importance. This story revels in the pensiveness of belonging, & the turmoil of a place revolutionized by Church, State, & partisan. For Anthony, reminders of his childhood bring him a sickening nostalgia, whereas Conway acts as though he lives there still, in the moors near where his mother’s boat capsized.
It is intriguing to witness two characters mirror each other so profoundly. The relationship that they develop is built on their homeland. However, neither man seems eager to remind the other that they come from a land small in geography & suffocating in historical impacts.
I often found myself wondering if the men could have been true friends, had they met at another time, in another life. The story explores the downfall of Conway as he abandons the Georges Lecointe to pursue terrorism against the underground cables, leaving bombs attached which may—ideally—not impact or harm others but which could—quite probably—kill a person. By the end of the book, the reader has learnt that Conway was the perpetrator of his own demise. He died having dived to reach a cable off the Egyptian coast to break it apart, the blast leaving his carcass for the ocean life.
The author includes interesting tidbits about the logistics of underwater cables. The feeds drive our land-based communication & allow us to maintain some semblance of awareness about the world around us. What each character is left wondering is whether this is a positive reality for humanity.
Surely, at face value, our ability to communicate & transfer information with one another at such speed & with such frequency is a positive thing. The world has never before been so known to us & yet we are constantly faced with problems of our own making. What do we do about plastic pollution in the oceans & lakes? What happens when the glaciers melt? Are we supposed to know everything about the world or were we better off ignorant of our follies?
Anthony seems of the mind that awareness is a consequence of existence. In times of trouble, he mentally returns to things he has not thought about for years. This practice seems to soothe him as he wanders the world on the heels of great figures of change. Never does he question whether the words he writes should be penned or whether the words he says should be spoken.
In fact, Anthony, though a man of earnest intention, remains placated by the actions of others so much so that he has allowed his son to wander into the arms of others, rather than offering up his own. Will the reader fault him for this?
When exploring Anthony’s character one must wonder at the early days. A person is not who they are when we meet them without the moon’s company over many nights & sun’s warm watchful rays. Yet, few of us ever learn enough about one another to fully appreciate the journey of life.
While reading Anthony’s story, I felt conflicted. At times, he felt it in his ability to share more of himself than he would receive. In fact, he will never know the reader intimately, & will never have the chance to converse with the person consuming his story.
These chapters, more so these sections, were of particular importance because they lend themselves as explanations for both Anthony & Conway. Neither man will be fully transparent with anyone. I rather doubt there has come a time in their lives where they felt it was to their benefit to call to their experiences like art exhibited in a museum. I will not fault them for that.
Anthony’s small moments of vulnerability where he speaks truth to power, coining the tendrils of an un-beating tremor, will remind readers of the reality that besought the characters. There is certainly no need to excuse either man’s behaviour, they do not make excuses for their choices & I am rather inclined to believe that they would be distraught at the prospect of pity.
Yet, it is important to remember what sent Conway into the ocean’s depths & what led Anthony to isolate himself on a freight ship. Potentially, the gravity of their upbringing will be lost on the reader. Their need for a grand mystery of terror may supersede the calming tone of the truth; some people never escape the confines built inside them.
What I appreciated most about this novel was how simple it was. Men on the ocean repairing cables. Men on the ocean caught in the tidal waves of their burdens. That being said, I did find some moments annoying. Zenele was not a person who read to me as genuine. I suppose this is because everyone in the story felt so enamoured by her, that everything she said had a twang of falsehood.
Certainly, because the reader learns about her by proxy of Anthony, it is not surprising that I felt so conflicted about her character. However, as the story progressed, I felt that there were two truths. Zee was a person who adopted the role of other people, the roles built for make-believe, she voiced things that were not her words & was given praise for their delivery. I found her taunts about the guilt of humanity flawed & her deity-like essence pruned at the edges.
I will not pretend to have adored any character in this book, I rather doubt that was the author’s goal. However, the faults & flaws of the cast of primary & secondary characters felt authentic & though they may not have wanted to be transparent about themselves, they lived in truth, no matter the cost.
When I regard the characters for what they are & what they contributed to the story I welcome them all. The silent wandering legs aboard the ship, the silent prayers of longing for something different, the careful prodding for vulnerability faced with one another, & the reflection they saw in the mirror.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this story because it was enough of what it was to succeed at being what it hoped to become. The narrative studies the reality of access to information & the toll this has taken on humanity. Our inability to wander the grooves of awareness torments progress as we covet repetition redundantly.
The setting gathered a cloak of wet wallowing into the gore of each word, every memory a soggy state of affairs. The reader will choose whether they wish to regard this novel as the romanced tale of a man who wished no longer to know & forget the messages he could not send or, whether they wish to interpret the tale as a swan song of longing for an end, near & dear to their heart.
There will be no resolution that pleases the reader & their interpretations will vary. Should a person come across this story they will be met with the turbulent nature of the species & the journeys we undergo to be met with ourselves.
The numbing isolation of the truth can be met when the reader is prepared to settle on its existence. Coyly the author closes his story to fondle the airways he has yet to navigate; memories of a world he once knew. One day, the reader may come to find that Anthony, like many, has forgotten parts of himself in the past. Conway was perhaps attempting to set his countryman free from the rumbling nature of war that wiggled the doorhandle, cooing for entry into the green wide yonder of home.
Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, & Colum McCann for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2025
3,5
‘Twist’ is largely a novel about ‘repair’. Repair of a cables, repair of people (Fennell, Conway), and repair of relationships. I enjoyed and raced through the topical story, but had some trouble with the characters. They’re interesting enough, but I felt I didn’t really got to know them. The Conway mystery (why he did what he did) remains mostly unsolved as well, which was somewhat frustrating in the end.
Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley UK for the ARC
‘Twist’ is largely a novel about ‘repair’. Repair of a cables, repair of people (Fennell, Conway), and repair of relationships. I enjoyed and raced through the topical story, but had some trouble with the characters. They’re interesting enough, but I felt I didn’t really got to know them. The Conway mystery (why he did what he did) remains mostly unsolved as well, which was somewhat frustrating in the end.
Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley UK for the ARC
April 14, 2025
Colum McCan’s The Twist is a story of connection and disconnects on personal, cultural, national, and international levels. While most of us today take the interconnected world of the internet for granted, few really understand how it works, how the messages, reduced to pulses, are sent across town or around the world through cables lying beneath the oceans.
to be continued…
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an eARC of this book. The review is my own.
to be continued…
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an eARC of this book. The review is my own.
July 29, 2025
In this story, I learned a lot about the underground cables that carry signals all around the world. Like the protagonist, Anthony Fennell, a journalist from Ireland, I thought most internet signals were bounced off satellites. At least 95% of international internet traffic, however, travels through underwater cables. In this story, I followed Fennell aboard the Georges Lecointe, initially docked at Cape Town, South Africa. There are two teams: the ship's Captain and his team, responsible for the smooth running of the ship, and the Chief of Mission, John Conway, and his team, responsible for locating and repairing the broken cable. Conway is Fennell's contact for the investigative story that Fennell is writing.
After days of waiting, a cable breaks where the Congo River spills out into the Atlantic. A tremendous flood leads to an underwater avalanche.
All of it took place so far underwater, and most of the sensors were destroyed in the flood, but it was January, and the enormous slide began, an avalanche, an underwater punch to the back of the brain, rupturing the eardrums of whatever was there to hear it, an eight-hundred-kilometer slide that could have destroyed anything in its path, passing through the underwater gorges, beyond the jagged cliffs, over the drowned ridges, the bluffs, the crags, the caves.
McCann paints his settings meticulously, creating vivid images of Cape Town, the ship, the environment, and the sea. I love the immersive feel this creates, plopping me in the middle of wherever Fennell happens to be. Some of his language is lyrical.
Small countries of light and dark poured across the sea.
I liked watching the waves even more than the sky. White horses, I had called them as a child. The raw edge of the roll. They shied or reared, lowered their heads, charged, and galloped on.
On one side, the rumor of land. On the other, a plentiful nowhere.... The evening sun dropped down into the gray bakery of the sea.
Before boarding the Georges Lecointe, Fennell spent some time with Conway, watching him freedive, and went to his home to meet his significant other, Zanele. There are also two children, twins, a boy and a girl. Zanele is a South African beauty on the cusp of fame, due to travel to London to be in a play. The story revolves around these three people. In a way, Fennell reminded me of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. These people will have a great effect on Fennell, but he is on the outside looking in, making his determinations about them as individuals and as a couple. This setup kept me at a little distance from all the characters. Although I was interested in their lives, I felt removed from understanding the interior lives of Zanele and Conway. Perhaps this is what the author wished to convey as some sort of wisdom about communication. You cannot know a person by text, their underwater signals, and we are all prone to emotional floods and avalanches, which we often fail to communicate effectively (or perhaps others wish we were less effective).
I also wanted more from Fennell. I wanted him to have a life outside this story. Is that ridiculous? A story has its boundaries. Fennell has an ex-wife and a son, from whom he is estranged. He begins a letter to his son while aboard the ship. Good for you, Fennell. Make a life for yourself. After Zanele rises to fame, he keeps trying to contact her. There's more reason for that than I can explain due to spoilers. But he keeps trying and trying. I want to shake him. Move on. Go see your son. Make your own story. However, isn’t it true that our stories are the stories of others? Writers, readers, isn’t that the case?
McCann is a great author, and I'm sure there are undercurrents in this novel that I wasn't able to tease out. I've only read 'Dancer' by him, and it was so different from this book as to have been written by a different person. Perhaps I will eventually get to read his book, Apeirogon, which I've heard is great. In any case, I will always be interested in what McCann is writing.
After days of waiting, a cable breaks where the Congo River spills out into the Atlantic. A tremendous flood leads to an underwater avalanche.
All of it took place so far underwater, and most of the sensors were destroyed in the flood, but it was January, and the enormous slide began, an avalanche, an underwater punch to the back of the brain, rupturing the eardrums of whatever was there to hear it, an eight-hundred-kilometer slide that could have destroyed anything in its path, passing through the underwater gorges, beyond the jagged cliffs, over the drowned ridges, the bluffs, the crags, the caves.
McCann paints his settings meticulously, creating vivid images of Cape Town, the ship, the environment, and the sea. I love the immersive feel this creates, plopping me in the middle of wherever Fennell happens to be. Some of his language is lyrical.
Small countries of light and dark poured across the sea.
I liked watching the waves even more than the sky. White horses, I had called them as a child. The raw edge of the roll. They shied or reared, lowered their heads, charged, and galloped on.
On one side, the rumor of land. On the other, a plentiful nowhere.... The evening sun dropped down into the gray bakery of the sea.
Before boarding the Georges Lecointe, Fennell spent some time with Conway, watching him freedive, and went to his home to meet his significant other, Zanele. There are also two children, twins, a boy and a girl. Zanele is a South African beauty on the cusp of fame, due to travel to London to be in a play. The story revolves around these three people. In a way, Fennell reminded me of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. These people will have a great effect on Fennell, but he is on the outside looking in, making his determinations about them as individuals and as a couple. This setup kept me at a little distance from all the characters. Although I was interested in their lives, I felt removed from understanding the interior lives of Zanele and Conway. Perhaps this is what the author wished to convey as some sort of wisdom about communication. You cannot know a person by text, their underwater signals, and we are all prone to emotional floods and avalanches, which we often fail to communicate effectively (or perhaps others wish we were less effective).
I also wanted more from Fennell. I wanted him to have a life outside this story. Is that ridiculous? A story has its boundaries. Fennell has an ex-wife and a son, from whom he is estranged. He begins a letter to his son while aboard the ship. Good for you, Fennell. Make a life for yourself. After Zanele rises to fame, he keeps trying to contact her. There's more reason for that than I can explain due to spoilers. But he keeps trying and trying. I want to shake him. Move on. Go see your son. Make your own story. However, isn’t it true that our stories are the stories of others? Writers, readers, isn’t that the case?
McCann is a great author, and I'm sure there are undercurrents in this novel that I wasn't able to tease out. I've only read 'Dancer' by him, and it was so different from this book as to have been written by a different person. Perhaps I will eventually get to read his book, Apeirogon, which I've heard is great. In any case, I will always be interested in what McCann is writing.
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