Director of Library Operations Pamela Parker recommends Twist: A Novel by Colum McCann.
Irish author Colum McCann grapples with human disconnections in his most recent novel, Twist (2025). He does so by taking us on a sea-faring adventure off the coast of Africa aboard a vessel that repairs underwater fiber-optic cables. Periodic damage to these lines threatens global communications and requires specialized teams who spend long periods at sea locating the breach and reconnecting the cables. It’s an unusual premise that ultimately serves as a metaphor for impacts that globalized technology has had on our lifestyles and livelihoods, for better or worse.
In Twist, McCann looks at what happens when connections are severed and asks the reader to consider the vulnerability communication ruptures pose to our humanity.
The featured character is Anthony Fennell, a published novelist who is undergoing a mid-career, post-divorce slump. At 48, Fennell is admittedly drinking too much and gaining weight around the midsection. When he takes a writing assignment that sends him to Cape Town, South Africa, he begins a journey that will challenge his perceptions of self and, ultimately, push him toward the edge of his professional standards in pursuit of an ephemeral truth that he never seems to catch up with.
Fennell finds himself aboard the Georges Lecointe as it sets off toward the mouth of the Congo River on a repair mission. He is soon sea sick and hardly able to leave his cabin. The ship is led by a self-assured boat captain, John Conway, who nurses Fennel through. As the ship searches for the cable break, Fennell gets to know Conway but finds him elusive and hard to understand. Some allusion to the 1899 novel Heart of Darkness (1899) is apparent, referencing that storied life of nineteenth century seaman and writer Joseph Conrad.
The single-mindedness of Conway’s stoic efforts to finish a difficult repair foster heightened tensions aboard the ship.
We begin to see Fennell’s own battle with his past. While his hackles are raised by several insights gained online about Conway’s past and apparent lack of veracity, he begins to realize that all of us have past regrets. In turn, this triggers a wave of reflection about his own fractured life, including the loss of contact with a son that he’s never had a chance to know. He also begins to engage in deep-dives on the internet to find out more about Conway and his beautiful girlfriend, Zanele—a playwright and actress whose story captures unhealthy levels of the writer’s focus.
McCann seems to be asking whether personal disconnections are an inevitable outcome of an age of disruptive new technologies—and whether our desire for a ‘normal life’ is increasingly out of reach.
I decided to read this novel after seeing Colum McCann speak at last summer’s Sun Valley Writers Conference. He has earned a solid reputation for his stand-out works of literary fiction, having won the National Book Award for Let the Great World Spin (2009). In Twist, he begins to define himself as one of the most creative writers of contemporary fiction as he dabbles into auto-fiction within his work and takes on original topics handled in uniquely sophisticated ways.
Twist is a surprisingly deep exploration of the human psyche—and one that hacks at the quandary raised by epidemic levels of loneliness in a world that is more wired than ever.
Ultimately, Twist rejects easy plot resolutions in favor of extended consideration to the impacts of modernity—on individuals, families and communities. I suspect that it will make you think about and reflect on the assumptions that you make about our increasingly wired lives.
In June, I’ll be leading a discussion of the novel as part of The Community Library Book Club. Join us if this tale of underwater intrigue sparks your interest.
