Taking Manhattan

Russell Shorto
Swift Press, £20, pp416

This follow-up to Shorto’s excellent The Island at the Centre of the World takes as its starting point the moment the Dutch colony New Amsterdam became New York in 1664. This was an English takeover that occurred, surprisingly perhaps, through negotiation rather than violent confrontation. Through these events, Shorto sees – via new translated sources – the birth of the first modern, multi-ethnic, capitalist and secular city. Leaving room for those who were dispossessed and enslaved, he performs a complex dance with historical revisionism too, offering new perspectives and ideas space to blossom.

The Horse

Willy Vlautin
Faber, £9.99, pp224 (paperback)

As an accomplished musician turned author himself, there’s something incredibly authentic about Vlautin turning his attention to a down-on-his-luck songwriter with only his back catalogue of sad folk tunes and memories to fall back on. It’s what Vlautin does next with this brief but richly drawn tale that makes it jump into magical realist territory; an ailing horse arrives in the snow and not only gives the songwriter a purpose, but a point of reference when surveying the wreckage his life choices have caused. It’s a bleak ballad, but The Horse still soars.

Twist

Colum McCann
Bloomsbury, £18.99, pp256

McCann has been open about the influence of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness on Twist. Here, though, the “man on a quest on a boat” is a freediver off the coast of Africa trying to repair breaks in the fibre-optic cables carrying the world’s information across the ocean bed. He’s being studied by a writer who is intrigued by this complicated character’s motivation, and also by the clear subtexts of information overload, colonialism and climate crisis that missions like this get tangled up in. McCann expertly marshals insightful reportage with intense storytelling: thrilling and thoughtful stuff.

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