In literary fiction, undersea communications cables are not the hottest topic. However, Colum McCann told the Guardian that “[i]n the early part of the pandemic, I was thinking a lot about the notion of repair, because things were shattering around us fairly frequently. Somewhere I fell upon the story of the Léon Thévenin, a cable repair ship out of South Africa. Like everybody else, I thought that [digital] information went up from our phones and hit these satellites and came back down. I was really taken by the notion that it all happens in the bottom of the deep black sea.”

Inspiration comes from all sorts of places. But interestingly, the story in TWIST has become an example of a new form of warfare on this planet. McCann’s intuitive predictive choice presents a new “twist” in the fight for power over communications amidst the growing need for high tech in our high-tech society.

"In 235 brisk but beautiful pages, McCann tells a story that encompasses the entire world... [TWIST] is a blistering book, an achievement that will bring it marked success and put it on shelves amongst the world’s greatest classics."

Like HEART OF DARKNESS, the Joseph Conrad classic that is constantly referenced in this tome, McCann stated that “[TWIST] is a man on a quest on a boat. The cable break occurs after the Congo River floods and flushes all of its refuse out to sea. It’s interesting that the cables we’ve laid down follow almost exactly the old colonial shipping routes.” And so the world of high tech takes on the vindictive and dangerous sheen of colonialism and all that it has left in its wake. This is what raises TWIST above other espionage tech stories. There is a deeply felt, difficult topic at the heart of what is going on: the scars of colonialism showing up. In the midst of the fight to connect the world with satellite communication, old prejudices and power plays raise their ugly heads. This is both an old and a new form of warfare, and it is a sticking point that is developed and thoughtfully considered throughout the book.

Anthony Fennell is an Irish journalist and playwright who is covering the world of fiber-optic communications. When a break occurs under the seas off the African coast, he is confronted not just with the intensity that such a repair requires in terms of technology, but also with the human endeavor necessary to do it. The chief of the mission, John Conway, is an engineer and free diver who manages to swim below the surf into dangerously deep waters. When they end up at sea together during the process of fixing the cables, both men find themselves in contact with essential questions regarding their humanity. Their relationships with their loved ones, their work and themselves may never be quite the same after this escapade.

The book begins with Fennell giving the reader a very poetic paean to the one and only Conway. Like Colonel Kurtz in HEART OF DARKNESS, Conway is a poet and a pragmatist, a difficult-to-pin-down guy with superhuman abilities. But his ways are not something that Fennell ever wishes to see again. McCann leaves no doubt up front that the journey is going to take the reader on something of a serpentine moral pilgrimage. And the plot is both political and personal. How each man handles the stark realities of what goes down connects them, but ultimately it allows them to travel the rest of their lives changed for good (and not in the WICKED way).

In 235 brisk but beautiful pages, McCann tells a story that encompasses the entire world --- its history, the sea, and all that has been made of it: religion, philosophy, love and danger. It is a rare read that something as slim as TWIST can bring together the most salient points about so many considerations about how we live just by looking at hardware. It is a blistering book, an achievement that will bring it marked success and put it on shelves amongst the world’s greatest classics.