Colum McCann’s novel Apeirogon was one of my all time best reads (or listen – I found the audiobook to be utterly compelling) and this novel, thought also quite compelling, didn’t thrill me as much.
It follows a journalist, Fennell, who is given the job of shadowing the captain of a ship that fixes damage to the network of undersea fibreoptic cables. These cables carry all the information (or most – some it done by satellites) for the world wide web, a fact that I have often found fascinating – actual physical cables going all across the vast oceans!
The book has several themes – family, belonging, technology (for good or for bad), life’s work, meaning, doing your job vs doing what’s right, working out what is right. It was certainly thought provoking.
Sarah Wray Writer 