Margins
Gone book cover
Gone
2014
First Published
3.51
Average Rating
42
Number of Pages

The bestselling author of Let The Great World Spin delivers an emotional tour de force about the search for a missing boy and the mother who is desperate to find him. Few fiction writers today are as loved and admired as Colum McCann—for his soul-stirring prose, his high-wire narratives, his understanding that in life’s small, everyday moments, there is magic. Author of the New York Times bestsellers “Let the Great World Spin” and “Transatlantic,” McCann has been called “a giant among us” (Peter Carey), “dazzlingly talented” (O: The Oprah Magazine), and “that rare species in contemporary fiction: a literary writer who is an exceptional storyteller” (The Independent). He’s received a National Book Award, an Oscar nomination, and a slew of international prizes. His talents are on full display in his new short story, “Gone,” a deeply affecting literary thriller about a mother and son, alone in a cottage on the west coast of Ireland, and the search that ensues when the boy—whom she adopted years before, deaf and with “already a whole history written in him”—goes missing. He slips away in early morning, down to the cold sea with his new Christmas wetsuit, and as the hours and days drag on, the coast guard, police, dogs, fishermen, farmers, and schoolchildren holding hands search the sea and walk the fields while the television crews and detectives come and go, the police at the cottage seeming to “ghost into one another: almost as if they could slip into one another’s faces.” The mother, Rebecca, now under suspicion, is racked with guilt over the decisions that led to her son’s disappearance, and tormented by the judgment of others: "You bought what? A wetsuit? Why in the world? What sort of mother? How much wine did you drink?" For Rebecca, “every outcome was unwhisperable.” “Gone” is a charged narrative that propels you forward, heart in your throat, and a moving, intimate look at life’s struggles toward grace and a kind of redemption. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Colum McCann was born in Ireland in 1965. He is the author of two collections of stories and six novels, including the international bestsellers “Transatlantic” and “Let the Great World Spin,” for which he won the National Book Award. He has also been the recipient of the International Impac Dublin award, a Chevalier of l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, an Oscar nomination, and several other literary awards. His work has been published in more than thirty-five languages. He lives in New York with his wife, Allison, and their three children and teaches in the M.F.A. program at Hunter College. PRAISE FOR COLUM McCANN “A damned lot of fun to read.” —Dave Eggers, author of “The Circle” and “A Hologram for the King” “Here is the uncanny thing McCann finds again and again about the miraculous: that it is inseparable from the everyday.” —The Boston Globe “Fiction that gets the heart thumping.” —Frank McCourt, author of “Angela’s Ashes” and “Tis” “This is McCann’s gift, finding grace in grief and magic in the mundane, and immersing the reader in these thoroughly.” —The San Francisco Chronicle “McCann’s heart-stoppingly simple descriptions wow.” —Entertainment Weekly “If God is in the details, then McCann is surely close to heaven.” —St.

Avg Rating
3.51
Number of Ratings
292
5 STARS
17%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
5%
goodreads

Author

Colum McCann
Colum McCann
Author · 16 books

Sign 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," due to be 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. “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. Colum has won numerous international awards and has been a bestseller on four continents. 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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