This Side of Brightness: A Novel
This Side of Brightnessweaves historical fact with fictional truth,  creating a remarkable tale of death, racism, homelessness--and yes, love--spanning four  generations. Two characters dominate Colum McCann's narrative: Treefrog,  a homeless man with a dark and shameful secret, and Nathan Walker, a black man who came north in the early years of the century  to work as a "sandhog," digging the subway tunnels beneath Manhattan.  Tunneling is perhaps the most dangerous occupation a man could have; in the close, dark,  and dangerous pits far beneath the city streets, differences such as color or ethnic  background cease to matter, and Walker soon becomes friends with his crewmates: two  Irishmen and an Italian. Then an explosion in one of the tunnels literally blows Walker  and three other men up through the earth and into the East River. Walker survives, but his  best friend Con O'Leary is never found. Leary leaves behind a wife and young daughter  whom Walker marries many years later.Walker's tale is told in alternating chapters with Treefrog's, who, before his slide into homelessness,  chose a hazardous profession--this one high up in the bright sunlight--as a construction  worker building skyscrapers. But madness has brought Treefrog out of the light and back  to the tunnels that Walker helped dig as he scrapes out a meager existence among the  drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, and petty criminals that make up the homeless  community. But the grimness of McCann's tale is leavened by the beauty of his prose and  the intimations all through the book that, even on this side of darkness, redemption is  possible.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.