Twist by Colum McCann 

Book club discussion 6 November 2025 Coeur de Lion, Bath

Summary of discussion aided by AI

This was very much a “Marmite book” that split the book club down the middle—half the group really liked it while the other half weren’t that convinced.

Twist follows Anthony Fennell, a struggling Irish writer with drinking problems and writer’s block, who takes a job writing about undersea fibre-optic cable repairs. He travels to South Africa and joins a cable repair ship off the West African coast. There he meets John Conway, the mysterious captain and expert free-diver, and Zanele, Conway’s partner who’s a South African actress. She leaves for London with her two children soon after the story starts. What begins as a straightforward description of cable repair turns into something more philosophical about how people connect and disconnect, ending with Conway’s disappearance and acts of sabotage against undersea cables in Egypt.

Technology 

Some found the cable repair material genuinely interesting. Most people never think about how almost all internet traffic travels through cables on the ocean floor, and McCann does a good job explaining this world. The contrast between high-tech communications and the old-fashioned repair methods was striking—basically dropping a grappling hook four kilometers down into the mud and hoping to snag the cable. The book felt timely given recent news about attacks on undersea cables.

The technical aspects really resonated with some , particularly those with professional knowledge of fibre optics and related fields. The references to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, turbulence and laminar flow!!, and the discussion about the delicate but powerful nature of fibre optics worked well. The book effectively captured how fragile the internet infrastructure actually is, despite its seeming robustness. Some  wanted even more technical detail about how the repairs actually work.

Characters 

Conway split opinion completely. Some found him fascinating, complex, and mysterious—a skilled leader who inspired loyalty but remained unknowable. His unusual combination of being an engineer and free-diver made him intriguing, though his drivers were hard to understand. The charismatic quality he had in initial meetings came through for some readers, and his strange relationship with Zanele added depth. His surprising ending and hidden previous life worked for those who enjoyed the mystery element.

Others felt he never really came alive as a character. Instead of experiencing his supposed charisma, readers just kept being told he was interesting without actually feeling it. The hints about IRA connections felt like they were creating fake depth without ever going anywhere. His transformation in the final section into someone performing superhero-level acts of underwater sabotage seemed far-fetched and unconvincing. Nobody really understood why he did what he did—his motivations just weren’t clear.

Fennell as narrator divided opinion too. Some really grew to like him—his messy background, his dithering about contacting his son, and the pain about his lost wife felt real and relatable. The comment about him always explaining himself too much resonated strongly with readers who could relate to that feeling. His struggle with alcoholism and his broken relationship with his son were moving, especially when agonising over writing to his son. The section where he lived alone after Conway disappeared and the potential relationship with Velianne that almost happened (but didn’t because of Zanele’s phone call) was particularly engaging for some.

However, others found him not particularly likeable, dull and disengaged as a narrator.

Zanele was interesting, with her home life well described. Her strange relationship with both Conway and Fennell, and the other man in the background, added complexity. But her subplot about the acid attack in London felt underdeveloped to some and didn’t seem to serve much purpose.

Veliare stood out, particularly in the powerful dump scene showing how locals scavenge for pennies—a real moment illustrating global inequality. The near-relationship with Fennell added tension.

The ship’s crew and various characters encountered during the sea voyage were well drawn, with readers enjoying the seasickness scenes and the portrayal of life aboard the boat.

Writing Style

McCann writes beautifully, with some lovely prose and vivid descriptions of the sea and ship life. Lines like “the waves combed the days” show his skill. The scenes on the ship, particularly dealing with seasickness and waiting through storms, worked well. The book had moments of great tension throughout.

For those who connected with it, the pacing was perfect—the kind of book you don’t want to read too fast because you don’t want it to end.

However, the structure had problems for others. The story felt messy at times—lacking clear motives and neat timelines. While this might reflect real life’s randomness, some wished for a more straightforward approach. The writing could be too sparse in places, too wordy in others. The final third really divided readers—some found it became an exciting mystery thriller with a surprising ending, while others thought it went off the rails into unbelievable territory.

Main Themes

Connection and disconnection is the main theme of the book.The cables physically connecting the world mirror apparently how the characters struggle to connect emotionally. There is a real irony in the billions of messages flowing through cables whilst people can’t actually talk to each other. As one character says, “Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.” The discussion about connections and life, and the delicate nature but powerfulness of the internet infrastructure, worked effectively as metaphor.

Technology’s impact on the environment runs throughout. The book looks at ocean pollution, environmental damage, and how Africa gets exploited by tech companies. The dump scene really drives this home. There’s also criticism of big tech’s greed and the contrast between the tough work of cable repair and the cat videos and junk that the cables carry.

Isolation despite being connected is everywhere. Characters are lonely even with the internet connecting everyone. The pandemic made people isolated on land but freer at sea. Relationships fall apart because people can’t actually communicate their feelings, despite having all the technology in the world.

The globalised world shows up in Conway’s international travels, Zanele’s work around the world, and the multinational ship crew. Everything feels rootless and temporary.

The book also touches on addiction and personal failure, particularly Fennell’s alcoholism and how “the bottle does a good job of drinking the mind.”

The book clearly echoes Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now—mysterious journeys through Africa, enigmatic figures, darkness and human nature. Some readers felt this worked well, others thought McCann was trying too hard to write something profound.

Conclusion

The book really divided readers. Some thought it was extraordinary storytelling working on multiple levels—the kind of book that stays with you and that you savour rather than rush through. Others felt it was superficial—touching on numerous themes (ocean pollution, terrorism, colonialism, loneliness, depression) without really digging into any of them properly.

Most agreed the first part was strongest, with the grounded technical material providing a solid base. The ending either made the book compelling with its surprising revelations about Conway’s hidden life, or ruined it with far-fetched plot developments. The biggest problem for those who didn’t enjoy it was Conway—his character and motivations never felt convincing enough to support the weight the story put on him.

What stayed with readers was the question of whether our messages and connections actually matter, the hidden world of cables connecting civilization, how fragile our internet infrastructure really is, and how we keep trying to fix things while staying broken ourselves. The book works best as a look at how we fail to communicate in our hyper-connected world, even if the story didn’t always hang together perfectly for everyone.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Apeirogon – A Novel, by Colum McCann

4 June 2020, via Zoom, in compliance with current lockdown guidance, and with thanks to Camilla and Chris Born

Book choice and report - AA

1
AA chose this book because it sounded interesting and because McCann has written an excellent introduction to creative writing, Letters To A Young Writer. It turned out to interest, irritate, perplex, entertain, and affect members of the club in a countably infinite number of ways.

2
AA really enjoyed this book about grief and rage, hate and cruelty and fear, humanity and inhumanity, security and insecurity, entrenchment and co-operation - in a land where most people don’t just think inside the box but spend their entire lives inside their respective boxes. Each people with its own Catastrophe. But it’s also about love. And extraordinary hope.

It helped, particularly at the beginning, that he’d seen a documentary on Bassam and Rami. He wasn’t sure initially with the jerkiness of the writing but it began to become beautiful if spare and he loved some of the descriptions – such as Bradford, the cave Bassam lived in as a child, its demolition by Israeli soldiers, the dialogue at the airport when Bassam was flying to Bradford, the Australian artist shooting 1000 white books, and the two men’s personal thoughts about what they would like to do to Y.A. who had killed Abir.

Forty-eight years old, he moves through the dark with a slight limp, a cigarette cupped in the well of his hand. He is thin, slim, fit. His limp imprints him into the world: otherwise he might slip through almost unnoticed. Still, an agility lurks underneath, a wiry surprise, as if he might burst away from the limp at any moment and leave it abandoned behind him.

And there were some visceral descriptions – Bassam’s imprisonment, and beatings, evicted Palestinians watching their possessions destroyed and their home sealed up so no-one could ever live there again, and soldiers shooting holes in water tanks, parents stripped and searched in front of their children, and Jesus’ crucifixion.

He turned nineteen years old with two missing teeth, several fractured bones and an empty drip bag in each arm

And some humour such as the Kafkaesque exchange between Bassam and the prison governor. He increasingly found a beauty to it, a clarity and honesty and humanity, the perspective of an observer far from dispassionate but instead passionate about the two men, about looking for peace. The detail was interesting because each story was so brief.

Both chapter 500s are moving accounts of Rami and then Bassam’s loss and grief and paths towards activism, separated by chapter 1001 - a triumph of a single sentence summarising the whole story. He liked the chapters counting backwards from 500 and how it was all woven round their trip to a monastery on a single day in 2016.

He found Bassam compelling and we never find out if the grenade he threw harmed anyone. Rami was fascinating too, and we get to know his family better – Nurit and Matti. The big gap for him was Salwa, Bassam’s wife, who he didn’t feel we were allowed to meet properly. He enjoyed going back in time to meet the grandparents and their connections with the rest of the family right at the end of the book - more and more layers of perspective and complexity. Some lovely pen portraits of Smadar and Abir, but we didn’t really hear the voices of women in the book.


Overall, a novel with a countably infinite number of stories, often compelling,

and once he’d accepted that the familiar plot and narrative arc of most novels was just not going to happen, the book grew in power and beauty. It constantly made him think. Its compassion made it uplifting and left him sad no longer to be travelling with Bassam and Rami. The book’s breadth and complexity seemed appropriate to the scale of its subject matter. It didn’t feel fragmented despite all the fragments. Life’s a mess of fragments and disjointedness and he enjoyed looking through McCann’s kaleidoscope. And the rhythms of the book and the links, and the sense of connection it gave him with the intrepid duo.

3
So he decided to give it an amicable score.

4
RV lived in Israel for a few years and his brother lives there. It was a book he ought to have liked as the conflict is of great importance both to him and to the world, but he liked almost nothing about it. It was biased and not even-handed, written very much from the Palestinian point of view. He felt the book was written so that the reader learns more about, and cares more for Bassam than Rami. Although he agreed with the author’s portrayal of the oppression of the Occupation.

It had very little plot – just two fathers who had lost daughters and the two main characters were too similar. He had no affinity for them and found no interesting characters. He had no idea what the book was about. He didn’t like the jumping around of the stream-of-consciousness style and although he appreciated the links and loops and threads he didn’t see the point of these other than being clever.

He noted small factual errors, but it was the major historical errors which he found unacceptable. And the events were not placed in context. There is nothing about other Arab countries, nor of those countries’ treatment of Palestinian refugees.

5
The style was silly.

6
Particularly the single sentence chapters.

7
And the title.

8
There were, however, a few good bits such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the concentration camp, the discussions about art and music and culture, and who decides that art is art. And both chapters 500, which he felt would have been a good way to start the book. McCann did tension well. Overall, not a terrible book and he respected the hard work that went into it, but he didn’t like it.

9
MW thought the treatment of the two men by the author was even-handed, but the book was not. However, he enjoyed it because it painted a picture for him, provided one can get inside it, with its sort of stream of consciousness style. He found some of the many interwoven stories and facts distracting and a few which seemed just to be showing off. He was unclear about the symbolism of the birds and said the facts about deuterium oxide were incorrect. He liked the ending, particularly the last sentence. In summary, he enjoyed despite the unnecessary bits and feeling it was a bit long.

10
CB loved it. And has started to re-read it.

11
He’d visited the West Bank earlier this year, including a brief stay in Tel Aviv, and his sister has spent time in Israel. He didn’t feel the book was one-sided. He noted that Bassam and Rami were 20y apart in age, had very different life experiences, and that their daughters died 10y apart. McCann developed well the common feeling and purpose between the two men.

Although it took him a while to get into it, he grew to like the book more and more. Overall, he loved the book – a beautiful kaleidoscope. He found the issues well represented and liked the people. He thought all the side stories linked well. He liked the style and the neat descriptions, particularly this quote:

Rami often felt that there were nine or ten Israelis inside him, fighting. The conflicted one. The shamed one. The enamoured one. The bereaved one. The one who marvelled at the blimp’s invention. The one who knew the blimp was watching. The one watching back. The one who wanted to be watched. The anarchist. The protester. The one sick and tired of all the seeing.

He'd been struck by the calmness of the Palestinians he had met in the West Bank despite the effect of the occupation on their everyday lives.

1001
In general, it was the interwoven facts that people found unnecessary or pointless more than the interwoven stories which carried more interest, particularly if the link was not clear e.g. the volume of someone’s swimming pool in LA.

RV and JH questioned what the book was really about and what can we take away from it. CB saw it as a powerful study of bereavement, MW as a painting, and AA and CB as a kaleidoscope of life in all its messy fragmented complexity. SC noted that the book did not have a conclusion, though nor does the conflict, but appreciated that lots of good writers would not have taken on this topic. RV, MW and SC noted a stream-of-consciousness feel.

11
MT visited Israel in 1981. He remembers tension there, but Arabs and Jews living together and no stone-throwing. He didn’t finish the book, stopping at 40%, having read some lighter fiction first and coming to Apeirogon late. He liked the birds and suggested their symbolism may be related to doves and Noah. He enjoyed phrases like “hospital within a hospital”, liked the prison guard becoming Bassam’s maths teacher, Bradford, the structure of the eye, and the Talking Heads references. But he didn’t feel he got to know Bassam and Rami very well. The side stories and facts became tedious and reading the book became like homework, like a journalistic documentary.

10
And by 40% he started to hate it.

9
CW really enjoyed it. He was initially confused by the disjointed structure, but got used to it and found that all the side stories kept him alive to the main stories, with the deaths of the two girls repeatedly brought back in from different perspectives – an interesting way of keeping grief constantly at the heart of the story. He felt that the huge mutual respect between Rami and Bassam based on sharing their common grief had developed into love.

8
It was a novel, but full of facts. And that McCann was able to explain the situation without any blame so that it didn’t feel one-sided. He just presented the facts and let CW make his own judgements. He thought the birds symbolised freedom.

He loved the writing and the descriptions and wants to re-read it. Although it was quite hard to get into, he found the writing very powerful.

7
WM did not get on at all with this book.

6
This was because the style, the presentation, despite the gruesome, terrible history and events it presented, completely stultified him. He had an idea of what the author was trying to do with Apeirogon - the repetition of events, each individually countable, but seemingly going on infinitely.

However, when he’d read maybe ten accounts of the murder of the children, he really did not want any more. Also, the side issues lost him: President Mitterrand of France eating ortolan, talks with the Senator John Kerry which go on for far longer than scheduled, the tightrope walker, the countless times that the motorbike is revved - he just couldn’t get into it at all.

He noted some lovely descriptions and liked the two men, but for him this was a case of the style negating the substance. He struggled, stopping and starting, to make 50%, and then just could not face any more.

5
SC is currently on halfway – exactly, having just read chapter 1001. He is finding it a really, really interesting book. He finds the structure difficult, and the need to look for the links between the various stories hard work at times. He agreed with RV that having both chapter 500s at the start would have helped the reader get into the book, but appreciated the author’s aim of layering the different stories and viewpoints. He found this effective in some ways and very annoying in other ways. One of the Borges quotes was just stupid.

But overall, he thought McCann was really brave to write this book and it was interesting that he took it on. He noted McCann is from Dublin and that George Mitchell who was involved in the Northern Ireland peace process was later involved in the Middle East. He thought there were some interesting angles and that this was a useful engrossing addition to the narrative and literature on the topic. It is too detailed and has lots of flaws but is also honest and brave and interesting. He found quite a lot of Ulysses in this. He is enjoying it and will try and continue.

4
JH has worked in Jerusalem, Gaza and Sinai and the book brought back the complexities and depressing nature and difficulties of conflict resolution. He really struggled with it, both as a book and as a topic. It was not a novel, and bills itself as a hybrid novel, but it was problematic to call it a novel. The Twitter-like disjointed style prevented development of characters and building on the human dimension. When the author gives himself time to write, as in chapters 277 and 500, the writing is great, but the tragedy is that he doesn’t most of the time. Some great images such as the Palestinians walking over the Andes with their keys round their necks.

3
It was depressing book to read in lockdown, a gloomy book. A real struggle to read and he was glad to get to the end and see the back of it.

2
I know that it will not be over until we talk to each other

It’s a tragedy that we need to continually prove that we are human beings.

My child was not a fighter. She was not a member of Fatah or Hamas. She was sunshine. She was good weather. She told me once that she wanted to be an engineer. Can you imagine what sort of bridges she could have built?

1
Scores:
AA – 23
RV – 9/2
MW - 23
CB – 32
MT - 22
CW – 8.5
WM – 2
SC – 7 (prov)
JH – 22