Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | How to Listen
In his new novel, “Twist,” the National Book Award-winning Irish writer Colum McCann tells the story of a journalist deep at sea in more ways then one: A man adrift, he accepts a magazine assignment to write about the crews who maintain and repair the undersea cables that transmit all of the world’s information. Naturally, the assignment becomes more treacherous and psychologically fraught than he had anticipated. On this week’s episode, McCann tells the host Gilbert Cruz how he became interested in the topic of information cables and why the story resonated for him at multiple levels.
“These cables,” McCann says, “are part of a larger world right now. And the whole world of espionage is very interesting, since the Russians are cutting cables in the Baltic Sea, the Houthis are cutting cables in the Red Sea. Everybody knows that the control of information is the control of the mind, which is control of desires and passions and wars. … That’s why the rest of the world is looking at this and is a little bit scared about what’s going on. Now, I don’t know if the novel is prescient in any way. I wanted to talk about repair. And when I got deep into the subject, I did talk about repair — which is, human repair or actual repair of a cable. But I also ended up talking about sabotage, too. And the sabotage of these cables is something that has to be on our minds.”
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].