让伟大的世界旋转 (2009)

Let the Great World Spin is a novel by Colum McCann set mainly in New York City in the United States. The book won the 2009 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative literary prizes in the world. Its title comes from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Plot

The events of the story are told in a largely non-linear fashion, with several different narrators telling the story from different perspectives. The story is interspersed with fictionalized accounts of Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk across the Twin Towers, the date on which the two main events of the novel occur: a fatal car crash and a trial.

In 1974, an Irishman named Ciaran travels to New York City to see his younger brother, Corrigan, a devout Jesuit monk who has moved to the projects of the Bronx. Corrigan works at a nursing home and has befriended several of the prostitutes working around his apartment, leaving his door unlocked so they can use his bathroom despite the danger this frequently puts him in. Ciaran meets two of the prostitutes, Tillie and her daughter Jazzlyn, who has two young children of her own. After Ciaran notices bruises on the inside of Corrigan's arm, he begins to suspect that he is using drugs. When he confronts him about this, Corrigan reveals that he is not using drugs but is in reality suffering from TTP. This was brought to his attention by Adelita, a nurse he met at the nursing home and has fallen in love with. This comes into direct conflict with the vows of chastity he took as a teenager and his sworn devotion to God, and he struggles to reconcile these beliefs with his love for Adelita.

Several months after Ciaran initially arrives in New York City, there is an incident in which many of the prostitutes are arrested, and Tillie and Jazzlyn are held in jail over an outstanding warrant for robbery. During the arrest, Jazzlyn drops a keychain with photos of her two children, which Corrigan picks up, intending to return it. The following day - 7 August 1974, the day of Philipe Petit's tightrope walk - Corrigan asks Ciaran to take over his shift at the nursing home for the day while he goes to pick up Jazzlyn from court after her acquittal. Ciaran agrees, and discusses his brother with Adelita, eventually coming to the conclusion that they have the right to be happy together for the time being no matter how their relationship will end. At the very moment Ciaran is coming to this conclusion, Corrigan's van is hit by a gold car on the FDR Drive, causing a massive car crash. Jazzlyn is killed instantly, and Corrigan is left so badly injured that the paramedics initially believe him to be dead. Lara, the passenger in the gold car, pleads with her husband Blaine, who was driving, to stop and accept responsibility, but loses her nerve when she hears sirens approaching and the two leave the scene of the crash. Meanwhile, Corrigan is rushed to a hospital and survives long enough for Adelita and Ciaran to make it to his bedside, where he tells Adelita that he had "seen something beautiful" before he finally dies.

The same day, Claire, a woman from a very wealthy southern family who lives on the Upper East Side, hosts a gathering for a group of mothers who have lost children in the Vietnam war. On the way to Claire's apartment, one of the women saw the tightrope walker and was shaken due to the fact that it reminded her of her son, expressing the belief that it was her son coming back to see her. Claire is greatly upset by this but cannot figure out why, eventually realizing that she resents the idea that someone would be so flippant about their own personal safety, showing so little disregard for their life when their sons were forced to give up their own without a choice. She tells the group the story of how she learned her son, Joshua, had been killed; Joshua had been drafted into Vietnam and worked as a computer programmer, writing code that would allow the computers to automatically tally American casualties. Unlike most of the other women's children, Joshua was not in active combat, but instead died when a grenade was detonated at the coffee shop he was inside. She reveals that she didn't know how to react to the officer who came to inform them of their son's death and instead just smiled and thanked him, unable to do anything else. After telling the story, she realizes that there is nothing they can do but rely on each other to heal, and decides to let go of her anger towards the tightrope walking man and instead focus on the memory of her son. As the women leave Claire's apartment, Claire pleads with Gloria - a black woman who is Claire's favorite of the group - to stay; Gloria considers staying, but decides to leave, as "we didn’t go freedom-riding years ago to clean apartments on Park Avenue". Before she departs, Claire tells Gloria that she would be happy to pay her, startling both women and causing Gloria to leave the building hastily. However, she is robbed of her purse - containing photographs of her sons - on the way home, and hails a cab back to Claire's apartment, where Claire apologizes profusely for what she said despite Gloria insisting that it doesn't matter. After several hours of talking, Claire's husband, Solomon, a judge, returns home, and tells them that he had presided over the case of the man on the tightrope and charged him a dollar and ten cents - one penny per floor - as well as another performance. Claire then takes Gloria home in a taxi; when they reach their destination, they see two young children being led away by a social worker. Gloria tells the social worker that she knows them and ends up raising the children, who are revealed to be Jazzlyn's daughters, Janice and another girl, also named Jazzlyn.