Connections made across time and space have long been a focal point of Irish writer Colum McCann’s oeuvre. From the construction of the first railway tunnels under New York (This Side of Brightness, 1998) to his singular portrayal of the history and emotional toll of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Apeirogon (2020), McCann has weighed what it means to tether oneself to another person, another place, another moment in history. Even his recent foray into non-fiction – American Mother (2024), written with Diane Foley, whose journalist son James was brutally murdered by ISIS – concerns itself with Foley’s attempt to find some sort of bridge between herself and her son’s killers.