I read thirty-three* books for pleasure in 2012—and at the end of the year I boiled it all down to One Favorite Book, difficult though that was. I read fifty-four in 2013, and most of them were titles I’d happily recommend, for one reason or another.

I blogged about some—Life After Life; The Best of Youth; The Round House; After Visiting Friends; Long Time, No See; Fresh Off the Boat; Now & Then; The Interestings—and have planned posts on a few more, including that orgy of classic Irish literature in which I indulged.

But the one favorite book seemed like a good idea then and it still seems like a good idea, so here it is—my favorite book of 2013. I knew the minute I closed the cover this one would be my choice; that was last summer, and as much as I loved Life After Life, I never wavered.

My favorite book last year was Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic. I bought my copy in Ireland in May, because I didn’t want to wait for it to release here, so eager was I for this book.

You know by now that I read all sorts of titles and genres, but I don’t mind declaring I am an unabashed lover of literary fiction. Lately it’s been hip to diss lit-fic, to sigh and say, Pretty writing’s all well and good but I want a great story!—even authors who should know better have said things like this—but don’t bring that trash talk around me, please. TransAtlantic is all about the story.

Three of them, in fact. All true.

In 1919, two young aviators from the recently ended World War hurry to pilot the first nonstop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland. Alcock and Brown carry with them a batch of specially postmarked letters—one which will not be opened for almost a hundred years. The second narrative is set in 1845, when Frederick Douglass spent two years in Ireland to promote the abolitionist cause, raise funds, and avoid recapture by his former owner. Finally we read about U.S. Senator George Mitchell’s efforts (with others) to negotiate the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which would bring peace, at last, to Northern Ireland.

The stories are seemingly unrelated; each is lovely and complete. Together they begin to show the complex public relationship between the United States and Ireland. And it wasn’t until I was well into the 1998 story that I began to discern the connections between them. Oh, yes, there’s the obvious (the trips back and forth across the Atlantic) as well as the symbolic (a black man asking the Irish for money to gain freedom) … and then there’s the sublime.

There’s a fourth story, as it turns out—completely fictional—which creates the novel and shows the myriad private human connections between Ireland and America. And as this story stepped out of the historical narrative where it had been hiding in plain sight, it quite simply took my breath away.

Author Column McCann made his own transatlantic crossing at age twenty-one, a Dubliner who’d been a reporter for the Irish Press. His intent, the Guardian says, was “to write ‘the great Irish-American novel.’” That reviewer believes McCann’s previous book—2009’s Let the Great World Spin, which sold a million copies and won the National Book award—might well be it.

Not a bad start 🙂 but TransAtlantic deserves consideration too. Some twenty-six years after his arrival, McCann’s still on this side of the Atlantic, but with his very Irish sensibilities intact.

I recognized every bit of the present-day Dublin he describes in the last half of the book. (History is important: “So polite and poised, a southern accent laced with some London, all our troubles in one voice.”) The language, the writing, is exquisite. The details break your heart; tension builds subtly. And you really have to read to the very last lines for the payoff, which is an unexpected act of human grace in eight perfect sentences that took me utterly by surprise and left me stunned and weeping. Two days later I tried to tell a friend about it, tried to read aloud those last eight gorgeous lines, and cried again.

“We seldom know what echo our actions will find,” McCann writes, “but our stories will almost certainly outlast us.” This story was enormously satisfying. Brilliant, in fact. It filled me up. My favorite book in 2013.

* I was way off my yearly average of 40–45, but my health wasn’t good and I spent a lot of time sleeping rather than reading.

Tweet: This story stepped out of the history where it had been hiding in plain sight & took my breath away.
Tweet: Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic: those last 8 gorgeous lines made me cry.
Tweet: My favorite book last year was Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic. Hands down.

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