McCann, Colum

Bassam is Palestinian and Rami is Israeli. They live in a world of conflict that consumes every aspect of their lives. When they learn of each other's daughters murders, they recognize the loss that connects them and they attempt to find peace within their grief.

"McCann asks his readers to constantly push the boundaries of experience, to see empathy and wonder in the stories we craft and hear. A paean to the power of language, both by argument and by example, Letters to a Young Writer is fierce and honest in its testament to the bruises delivered by writing as both a profession and a calling. It charges aspiring writers to learn the rules and even break them"--Jacket flap.

Philippe Petit's illicit 1974 high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers is the touchstone for stories of the people down below, including an Irish monk living in the Bronx projects, a Park Avenue mother in mourning for her son who died in Vietnam, and a heroin-addicted hooker.

A teenage girl in Ireland must choose between alegiance to her Catholic father and the British soldiers who have saved the family horse.

Presents a fictional story set in the New York City of the 1970s that follows a group of individuals as they attempt to live in this bustling city while dealing with the social issues of their time.

Three stories discuss the emotional upheaval of the troubles in Northern Ireland, exploring a teenage girl's gratitude toward British soldiers, a young man's hunger strike, and a small boy's participation in a Protestant political march.

In 1974 Manhattan, a radical young Irish monk struggles with personal demons while making his home among Bronx prostitutes, a group of mothers shares grief over their lost Vietnam soldier sons, and a young grandmother attempts to prove her worth.

A novelized version of the life of ballet superstar Rudolf Nureyev that carries the reader from the battlefields of wartime Russia through the flitz of the Euro-American jet set of the 1960s and 1970s and on to the sexual revolution and the ruthless onset of AIDS.