Real Rating: 4.5* of five<br />

Setting your repair story at the mouth of the Congo River is asking for Joseph Conrad comparisons. On a craft level, Author McCann is *streets* ahead of Conrad. On an imaginitive axis, he's at the fatal disadvantage that time presents us all. Somebody else did it a century-plus ago. That isn't always a problem since, after all, nothing's original after <i>The Tale of Gilgamesh</i>.

This story is focused more on Kurtz, sorry Conway, and his South African actress lover Zanele, than on Fennell the journalist covering Conway's really, really interesting role in maintaining the infrastructure we're so completely dependent on for modern life. I was captivated by the bits of the story that featured the underwater cables and their care, the hazards that beset them, and the clever, dangerous ways we use to maintain and repair them.<br />
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This is Colum McCann's m&eacute;tier: Metaphor. Underwater cables carrying all the world's information, all the connections between people, the vast accumulation of meaning enabled by them; the threat to them in the story is natural and requires huge, dangerous effort by multiple people; the man whose job it is to tell us about it is, unsurprisingly, in crisis of the same sort.<br />
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Because Fennell is the PoV man doesn't make him the center of the action, necessarily, and the argument that Conway's the main character is possible to make. All the action centers Conway. Every physical thing done of any consequence is done by Conway. His are the skills...freediving! ZOMG...that will repair the vital cable. Fennell has to learn all this data, and so we have an excuse to learn it with him. He is us...Conway is the action hero doing the stuff to make us more comfortanle, safer, in our cocoons. Fennell is there to tell us his story.<br />
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And Fennell himself? He's got the whole world in his head. He needs the same repairs as the cables. His ex, and his son, can tell you stories of the man who tells stories and yet has no emotional facility; no facility at moving the emotional data through the wildly pressurized cables of his emotional system out into the places they're needed. On this assignment, he's doing everything he can from miles away to understand and present to his audience the facts of the situation when, in reality, he's trying to explain how communication is invisible until it's broken. This is a central-to-life human fact.<br />
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What makes the men at the center of this story do what they do is women. That's a dreary, heteronormatove reality. The actress...note her profession's essential artifice...that Conway and, though less blatantly, Fennell desire is a professional dissimulator who presents emotional realities in an unreal, fictional way to illuminate their truth.<br />
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Acting is Orwellian...lying to create truth. Like writing, an artifice, an epicyclic system humans have created.<br />
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This is McCann's m&eacute;tier. He's operating within nominal parameters. He's found a stiry to tell that makes its mark by taking all Conrad's colonial-era concerns and trimming them to fit a twenty-first century audience's blind spots. He then uses the people he's created to fulfill the arcehtypal duties once held by Marlow and his blank-spaces-on-maps fascination, Kurtz, and the largely fogettable women Kurtz acquires. It's got verve, it's stylish, and it's built on foundations that have withstood the test of time. All that is the basis of a five-star rating, surely! Yes, but...the novella lengthis notablly absent. This is a novel in full, not to say a maximalist one; but novels allow a scope that can lead the ambitious into temptation of prolixity. Author McCann's succumbed to this fiction-fever. The ending of the story is not the end of the novel. It goes on a bit. Not long enough to get boring but long enough to feel baggy as an old, well-loved cardigan.
So I'm recommending it to all y'all who want a solid, involving story that is not perfect but is delightful and successful at revivifying a classic story that can never get stale.

Anthony Fennell, an Irish writer and investigative journalist ,learns that his next assignment is to cover a repair ship that is responsible for locating and repairing any breaks that occur from time to time in those fiber optic cables that lie on the ocean floor. Fennell's own career and life may be in need of some repair. Fennell is reluctant at first to "dive into" the assignment until he meets the enigmatic mission chief John Conway and his South African actress partner Zanele.
When the repair ship Georges LeCointe is sent out to fix a major underwater cable break, both Fennell and Conway earn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel.
Colum McCann's masterful story telling (through Fennell's narrative) takes the reader on a fascinating ride both out on the open seas and beneath its depths. The inclusion of Joseph Conrad, Apocalypse Now, and some Talking Heads lyrical references were much appreciated by this reader.
"Everything gets fixed. And we all stay broken"

Thank you Netgalley and Random House for this eARC.

We've all been onthe broken end of contact with the rest of the world....at least as we see it.....when the server goes down or the fiber gets cut. in TWIST, we meet Anthony Fennell, a journalist tasked with writing a story featuring the ships that go to sea to fix those fiber cables when they break or are severed. He's not keen on the assignment but what else does he have more pressing? The story line takes a sharp turn when Fennell meets John Conway, the ship's engineer in charge of repairing the cable that will return Africa's connection with the rest of the world. Conway is an original character brought to life when Colum McCann pairs him with an actress and then puts them in a remore area where there is nothing to restrict their actions and no way to find help. These characters will tell their own tale as we speed towards an unpredictable event. Twist is exactly that, a twist in the life and a twist on what we expected from the story.

Colum McCann is such a beautiful writer--I find myself slowing down from my usual frenetic reading pace so that I can savor every word. Twist is an ethereal novel, almost dreamlike. It is ostensibly about a journalist who's writing a story about the men (and it is just men, in this story) who repair underwater cables. But it's about so much more than that, as we explore the inner lives of each of our main characters and how they intersect. McCann gives us fragments that, bit by bit, add up to a kaleidoscopic whole.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There is a picture described in Colum McCann's "Twist": a simple drawing made by children that shows a tiny ship at the top of the frame and the overwhelming depths of the ocean below, its waters changing from blue to black. The small ship carries a hook that extends to the bottom of the sea, searching for something: as we learn, searching for the underwater broken data cable to fix it. This is how people attempt to harness the ocean and utilize it for our purposes: connecting through the internet.

Anthony Fennell, a journalist tasked with writing an article about repairing underwater cables, tells the story of this strange relationship between humans and the ocean. As an observer, he joins a ship's crew and quickly becomes fascinated not by the sea or the repair process but mainly by the ship's captain, Conway.  Together with Fennell, we observe how skillfully Conway leads his crew and how the repair process is done, but from the beginning, we are warned that the captain is not a person we can easily understand; his motives, seemingly straightforward, become darker, and murkier, just as the water in the ocean gets darker with depth. At times, I found the fascination with Conway a bit exaggerated: "He had a magnetic effect. I recalled how much the women seemed to hover in his orbit (..)" but perhaps showing the captain as a mysterious man, a lone ranger of a sort was in sync with other nautical fiction characters, mostly bringing the characters from Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville's books to mind.

To me, the most alluring part of this novel was a feeling of being out there in the ocean, disconnected from the world but trying to reconnect: in a very literal sense of repairing the underwater cable but also in trying to repair relations with people: in Fenell's case it was his neglected relations with his son, in Conway's – relations with his beautiful ex-girlfriend, South African actress,  Zanele.  Yet, if we can succeed in repairing an underwater data-carrying cable and achieve the illusion of being connected, our personal connections are another thing.

The very first thing to happen when you read this book is that you will fall in love with the writing. Profound prose. Make you stop and reflect on your life and soul prose. Next you will begin to ponder the magic of every device in your life as the story explores and examines the world that is the cables under the sea. Finally, you will either be called to anger or called to confusion or maybe just be awe struck as you try to sort through this story and meditate on its meaning. I am still sorting through my thoughts, but I know this is the type of book that is going to stick in my mind for a long time. You know, the book that you can't remember any character names but becomes a reference point for logic and wisdom that serves you well in life. Thank you Colum McCann for the great read and Thank you NetGalley for opportunity to read Twist early.

For today I am rating Twist 4 stars. That may change as I digest and reflect on this story.

This might be a like it or not novel. The plot- Antony Fennell, an Irish writer, joins a ship that repairs undersea cables- is intriguing but for me, the writing bogs down what would otherwise be a must read. There's a lot to chew on but I found it got lost in prose I found purple. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC<. I know McCann is a writer many enjoy (I was a fan of Let the Great World Spin) and I suspect I may be the odd one out regarding this latest.

What a lovely novel! Colum McCann has a way with words that scratches an itch in my brain, and I love it. I first encountered his work with Let the Great World Spin, and I loved it however many years ago I read it, so much so that McCann had continued to be an author that I’ve followed and enjoyed.

Twist is on par with all of McCann’s work, so if you’ve liked previous work you will most likely enjoy this one too. For me Twist does what all great literature and fiction should do—I learned things I didn’t know (cables under the sea to send electronic information—probably duh to some people but I’ve honestly never thought about it), and I had a front row seat to some good questions about the human condition (what does it mean to repair, and what if instead of repairing you rupture?).

Not a full 5 star for me because of my own personal preferences—I would’ve preferred a different structure in the telling of the third part crescendo/climax of the book—but ultimately that’s more me than the book. Really loved it despite this, so I would recommend for fans of literary fiction and those interested in exploring the human condition.

This type of storytelling isn't for me. I thought this was going to be a great adventure of hiw a jornalist gets to go along with a ship that repairs fiber optic cables in the deep recesses of the ocean. This is a story with lots of ramblings. I don't know what I'm supposed to get from it. I truely wanted to learn more about how repairs were done and Conway. And there's no closure as to why he destroyed the cables in the end.

Colum McCann’s new novel, “Twist”, demonstrates how easily technology can fail . . . as easily as cutting a cord at the bottom of the ocean. It also shows how tenuous and fragile human relationships are as well. While the topic is fascinating — lives of the sailors and repairers of the underwater cables, the characters themselves don’t seem as fully fleshed out as McCann’s characters usually do. The characters of Anthony Fennell and Conway are closed off, and I’m uncertain as to why characters divulge intimate details of their lives to the narrator (Fennell), as he doesn’t seem to do much to earn their trust. Finally, the image of a boat off the coast of Africa, helping to re-establish internet connectivity or a trapping of “civilization”, with a captain who may be little crazy and the narrative voice a middle aged white guy from Ireland just smacks too much of “Heart of Darkness”. I really wanted to love this novel, as it had all the elements I love in McCann’s other works — the unnamed people who are the tapestry of our history, a profession that most people don’t even know exist (the people who maintain transoceanic cables responsible for so much of what makes our world run is an actual thing!), characters whose life experiences represent so much of humanity — and yet, in a book literally about connections, I struggled to connect, to find the depth of setting and character that exist in the other worlds McCann has produced in “Transatlantic”, “Let the Great World Spin” and “This Side of Brightness.”

If you told me that I really needed to read a story about the communication lines that crisscross the ocean floor... I would have laughed. But I am here to tell you that you need to read a story about those undersea communication lines!

Twist is pure genius and again McCann crafts a story that pulls you in and keeps you there from start to finish. I loved the narrator, Anthony Fennell, so much! This book starts out by having you think that the story is about how those underwater cables are repaired...but really it is about so much more. It is about stories... shared and kept private. It is about overcoming obstacles... or going around them... or plowing through them. It is about doing the right thing... even when that is the wrong thing.

And while I did not want to like Conroy... I loved... love him too. No spoilers, but I am in the "he survived" camp! I highly recommend this brilliant story!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House | Random House for this digital copy of Twist. It will be published March 25, 2025.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House | Random House for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I could not get into this book. I had a hard time reading it. It was a slow book for me. I am not sure if I would recommend this book or not.

Colum McCann's latest novel is about the fiber optic cables that lie at the bottom of the ocean and carry nearly all our information through billions of pulses of light. And yes, these cables do break and someone needs to fix them as quickly as possible. This is the story of one such man, a man named John A. Conway, whose job it was to go out with a crew on a cable repair vessel, find the break and fix it asap. He was a complicated man and this is the story of how he wandered and was lost.

The story is told by Anthony Fennell, an Irish writer who has been hired to write an article about these underwater cables for an online magazine. He meets Conway and arranges to board the Georges Lecointe, a cable repair vessel which is heading out to fix two major breaks off the west coast of Africa.

McCann himself gives a nod to Joseph Conrad and the story does certainly carry an atmosphere of dread. I was also reminded of novels by Graham Greene. The characters are complex and at times unfathomable--at least to me. I never did quite understand Conway--except perhaps for what is expressed in this quote: "The most casual things can, after all, twist our tired hearts."

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc via Net Galley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

An Irish journalist, in an effort to get over writer's block, joins the crew of a ship that repairs broken underwater cables that carry information to the world of the coast of Africa in order to write an article. The chief of the cable repair is John Conway - a man with a mysterious past. This book started out strong, but it dragged once they were on the ship. The ending took an unexpected turn but not enough to make me love the book. Overall the book got dragged down trying to be metaphorical

Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me to read this book. I very much enjoyed the behind the scenes look into the world of transatlantic cables and what happens when they get cut. (Who even knew we rely on such things for our internet connections?) The characters are compelling and I found the book to be both informative and entertaining.

Twist is (somehow) my first Column McCann read and I was mesmerized by his way with words. Such absolutely beautiful prose fill the pages of Twist. Anthony Fennell is an Irish journalist hired to follow the story of John Conway, a diver who is doing work on the undersea communication cables off the coast of South Africa. The story is told from the perspective of Fennell putting his story together and his reminiscences of meeting Conway and his partner, Zanele.

Beautifully written and thought-provoking, Twist is a story that will leave me thinking about it long after I've finished reading it.

Twist is a thoughtful and beautifully written tale of a journalist pursuing the story of the individuals who repair the world's undersea telecommunication cables. When we first meet Anthony Fennell his life is in disarray; he's estranged from his wife and son, writing shorter works to pay the bills, and drinking more than a little. He accepts an assignment to join a cable repair team off of the west coast of Africa and is quickly intrigued by the mechanics of the thin fiber optic threads that carry the pulses of information around the world. He also becomes fascinated by John Conway who commands the mission. Conway is an admirable free-diver who has excellent instincts for locating cable breaks. Once he starts a search his focus reaches a heroic level. On the boat Fennell's attention is captured by the multi-national culture of the ship and its crew. In many ways his experiences at sea help him establish better habits and connections to the people who are important to him. Conway's life twists in an opposite direction due to both external and internal circumstances. He remains a cipher though the reader tries to puzzle out his motives and choices alongside of Fennell.

"It is, I suppose, the job of the teller to rearrange the scattered pieces of a story so that they conform to some sort of coherence. Between fact and fiction lie memory and imagination. Within memory and imagination lies our desire to capture at least some essence of the truth, which is, at best, messy"

Thank you to the Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof.

Colum McCann is a masterful storyteller and poetic writer. “Twist” tells the story of an unhappy Irish journalist who is assigned to write a story about repairing the underwater cables that carry information around the world. He is paired up with a sophisticated diver who heads a cable repair mission off the African coast and goes out to sea to witness a repair mission. Before and during the voyage, questions arise as to the motivations of each man and the life challenges that have brought them to this situation. The reader learns a lot about these underwater cables and the intricate process of repairing them as well as the skill of the divers and technical team involved in a repair operation. The book questions the global impact of the decisions we make as a society related to technology and connection as well as exploring the broken lives and relationships of these two characters. While I enjoyed the book, I didn’t like it as much as “Apeirogon”, a previous book of the author which I truly loved.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A novel about connections--both human and technological. A writer travels on a ship that is repairing internet cables on the sea floor. A mysterious man goes missing. There is much about the man that no one knows except a former lover.

An interesting but exciting story that takes you on a journey of intrigue, while keeping you thinking about how people change their thinking based on events that happen in their lives.