A novel fully deserving of its acclaim: Let the Great World Spin

Colum McCann's novel "Let the Great World Spin," based on first 150 pages or so, fully deserving of its acclaim - in a sense it's a series of novella-length set pieces (or longish short stories) about New Yorkers at an iconic moment in time - August 1974, when Petit crosses between the towers of the relatively new WTC (and all the contemporary echoes that theme evokes) and Nixon resigns and NYC is a much more crime-drug-graffiti rattled city than it is today. Gradually, we see how these lives intersect: first three characters (I will give some plot element away here) are an Irish monk devoted to working with prostitutes in the Bronx who dies in a car crash, a drug-addicted artist couple who may have caused the crash, an East side woman whose son has died in Vietnam (her connection not clear at this point). Yesterday's post noted echoes of Mrs. Dalloway in the first brief section, that these echoes become more profound esp in the section on the East Side woman, who is named Claire (cf Clarissa) and who is somewhat obsessive about the party/get-together she's hosting for other bereaved mothers, worrying particularly about flowers. M Cunningham played these notes - Dalloway in contemporary Manhattan - to different effect. Spin will also remind many of the movies about plot interections, particularly Crash and the much superior Lantana, and also may recall that collection of novellas about Irish/English Manhattan imigrees, Three Junes - but I also think it rises above all of its influences and creates a very vivid portrait of a city and some of its residents at a moment in time, it has a strong and compelling plot, and a clear style that never wallows in literary-reference or self-importance as others do.