A gripping, mysterious, and rich reading experience.
Feature image credit: Bloomsbury
One of the greatest novelists currently working in English, Colum McCann never fails to surprise. His new novel Twist is no exception.
Journalist Anthony Fennell has landed an unusual freelance gig: to write about the ships that go out to sea to repair fibre-optic cables laid deep under the ocean. These are the cables that keep cyberspace running, and breaks can interrupt service for days, or even weeks. He goes to Cape Town to meet the Chief of Mission, John Conway. A mysterious character, redolent of Conrad’s Captain Kurtz, Conway is married to Zanele, a beautiful early-career actor, about to make her big break.
Fennell finds himself captivated by both Conway and Zanele, with his journalistic sense that all is not as it seems. This feeling deepens as he goes out to sea with the ship and observes Conway at work, culminating with Conway’s mysterious disappearance off the coast of Ghana. This book then becomes the article he wanted to write, as opposed to the one he ended up submitting. The whole time, he is grappling with his own alcoholism, and estrangement from his son.
McCann has crafted a novel that manages to be both spare and epic. In this way it echoes Conrad who he references directly, along with Coppola’s Conradian reimagining, Apocalypse Now. He researched thoroughly, and brings that detail to the narrative, without swamping it in facts-for-the-sake-of-them. Not a sentence is wasted in this highly satisfying reading experience.
Twist is a work of quiet genius, gently but inexorably drawing the reader into the mystery, but also into a state of emotional buy-in. Fennell, Conway, and Zanele, are believable and relatable characters, although also manage to maintain an air of unknowability, which just adds impetus to the narrative. Other characters are also beautifully drawn, as are the settings: Cape Town, the ship, a small village on the coast of Ghana. It is almost like reading a lost manuscript of Bruce Chatwin. In all its ways, this is a gripping and seductive work of fiction.
Sure to be one of the lauded novels of 2025, Twist once again showcases the gentle yet powerful brilliance of Colum McCann.
Reviewed by Tracey Korsten
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Bloomsbury Publishing
Released: March 2025
RRP: $32.99
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