Apeirogon - Colum McCann

The definition of the title is a shape with a countably infinite number of sides, and the book lives up to its meaning. In Apeirogon, McCann unfurls the story of two fathers, one Palestinian and one Israeli, who have both lost their daughters to the violence that surrounds them. Over the course of the day, these two mens lives intertwine as they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace. Told in one thousand and one short vignettes, McCann flashes from the present to the past, sharing the lives of these men, the lives of their daughters, the experience of crossing police checkpoints and surviving jail, meditations on the migration pattern of birds, the making of bullets, and the history of the region. With these bursts, the novel centres on the unlikely friendship of two fathers and takes on a cinematic quality that vibrates with empathy, presenting a sweeping portrait of the complex conflict at the heart of the Holy Land. Apeirogon is a soaring and revelatory reading experience that is at once intimate and vast, heartbreaking and hopeful, and, yes, kaleidoscopic.

ISBN: 9781526607898

Pages: 463

Paperback

Bloomsbury, 2020

Good condition; jacket slightly creased

B45