Conversations with Colum McCann

by Earl G. Ingersoll (Editor), Mary C. Ingersoll (Editor)

Overview

Conversations with Colum McCann brings together eighteen interviews with a world-renowned fiction writer. Ranging from his 1994 literary debut, Fishing the Sloe-Black River, to a new and unpublished interview conducted in 2016, these interviews represent the development as well as the continuation of McCann's interests. The number and length of the later conversations attest to his star-power. Let the Great World Spin earned him the National Book Award and promises to become a major motion picture. His most recent novel, TransAtlantic, has awed readers with its dynamic yoking of the 1845-1846 visit of Frederick Douglass to Ireland, the 1919 first nonstop transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown, and Senator George Mitchell's 1998 efforts to achieve a peace accord in Northern Ireland. An extensive interview by scholar Cecile Maudet is included here, as is an interview by John Cusatis, who wrote Understanding Colum McCann, the first extensive critical analysis of McCann's work.

An author who actually enjoys talking about his work, McCann (b. 1965) offers insights into his method of writing, what he hopes to achieve, as well as the challenge of writing each novel to go beyond his accomplishments in the novel before. Readers will note how many of his responses include stories in which he himself is the object of the humor and how often his remarks reveal insights into his character as a man who sees the grittiness of the urban landscape but never loses faith in the strength of ordinary people and their capacity to prevail.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496812940
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	07/13/2017
Series:	Literary Conversations Series
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Earl G. Ingersoll, Churchville, New York, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at SUNY College at Brockport. He has written, edited, and coedited many books, including Conversations with May Sarton, Conversations with Rita Dove, and Conversations with Anthony Burgess, all published by University Press of Mississippi.


Mary C. Ingersoll, Churchville, New York, is a retired elementary school teacher who specialized in teaching humanities to gifted students. She also coedited Conversations with Anthony Burgess.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chronology xv

Interview with Colum McCann Stephen V. Camelio / 1994 3

Interview with Colum McCann Declan Meade / 2001 13

This Side of Brightness Interview Robert Birnbaum / 2003 23

Interview with Colum McCann Declan Meade / 2003 30

Colum McCann Robert Birnbaum / 2003 37

Zoli Interview: Q&A with Michael Hayes Michael Hayes / 2007 51

Zoli Interview: Q&A with Laura McCaffrey Laura McCaffrey / 2007 57

Colum McCann Robert Birnbaum / 2007 65

2009 National Book Award Winner Fiction: Interview with Colum McCann Bret Anthony Johnston / 2009 84

Colum McCann in Conversation with John Kelly John Kelly / 2010 91

"A Country of the Elsewheres": An Interview with Colum McCann Joseph Lennon / 2012 107

"Embracing the World by Inventing the World": The Literary Journey of Colum McCann John Cusatis / 2012 123

The Rumpus Interview with Colum McCann Alec Michod / 2013 140

Two Interviews with Colum McCann Cécile Maudet / 2013 145

Do What Is Most Difficult Synne Rifbjerg / 2013 181

Making It Up to Tell the Truth: An Interview with Colum McCann Alison Garden / 2014 193

"In the End, We Write to Say That We Matter": A Conversation with Colum McCann Earl G. Ingersoll / 2016 207

Index 217