Thirteen Ways of Looking comprises a novella and a few short stories by award-winning author Colum McCann. Winner of the International Dublin IMPAC Award, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and the National Book Award, among others, he has proven that he is an expert at constructing narratives that delve deep into the human condition.

The title novella, “Thirteen Ways of Looking,” centers on eighty-two-year-old retired judge Peter Mendelssohn. McCann describes the work as an examination of the limits of human empathy, based on an experience he had in Connecticut where he was assaulted outside of his hotel, leaving him with a concussion, broken teeth, and a fractured cheekbone. This traumatic experience caused McCann to consider other incidences of trauma and how people cope in the aftermath; whether they find comfort in closure or spend their lives seeking revenge.

The retired judge is heading out from his Upper East Side apartment in New York City to meet his son for lunch. Although it may not seem like much of a premise for a work of fiction, McCann proves that good fiction is spun out of the mundanity of life. In this story, he ruminates on old age as a kind of second childhood. He describes Mendelssohn as a man of much prestige, having traveled from Ireland to New York City and rising to the judge’s bench from nothing. However, as the story opens, Mendelssohn is grappling with the limitations of his own human body, in his bed covered in his own excrement.

Through the vivid third-person narration, McCann constructs a character filled with rage and regret. Although he is elderly, Mendelssohn is still very much alive, that is, until he meets his son for lunch and ends up being killed on the sidewalk by an unknowing passer-by.

The stories call into question the idea of our surveillance society, how we are at all times being documented either by cameras, CCTV, or the watchful eyes of others. In the story “Treaty,” Beverly, an Irish nun, confronts a Colombian man in a sandwich shop. Thirty-seven years earlier, she had been his victim as he kidnapped, raped, and tortured her. She reveals the scar across her breast as proof of the trauma she has endured at his hands.

The story makes the reader question the mind of the protagonist and her motivations. Though she seems spurred by a desire to find peace and closure from her experiences, the narrative calls into question whether Beverly’s memory is reliable, creating an atmosphere of unease that draws the reader in.

Before leaving the sandwich shop, Beverly asks the owner to give her the security tapes. He tells her that there are no actual tapes in the cameras, so he cannot give one to her, but he assures her that no one else will see the footage either. She realizes that she must take this man at his word, requiring trust between the two strangers. These are the intricate bonds that McCann explores through his writing, as well as the concept of violence and revenge, or the graceful avoidance of it.

“What Time Is It Now, Where You Are” opens on a US soldier who has gained access to a satellite phone on New Year’s Eve, managing to find a place where there are no cameras, if only for a moment. In this story, McCann explores violence through the desolate landscape. He describes the cold, dry wind and the outpost, surrounded by nothing but darkness and cold white frost.

“Sh’khol” is probably the strangest story of the collection, focusing on Rebecca, a woman adrift with her thirteen-year-old son, whom she adopted from Russia when he was just six years old. Traveling on the west coast of Ireland, the narrative follows Rebecca and the boy as they traverse the wild landscape together. This story showcases McCann’s ability as a writer to spin tales of empathy, placing himself, as well as the reader, in the body of another.

Throughout each story, the presence of danger is clear, or at least in the characters’ perceptions of it. What they each have in common is an overwhelming longing for peace and serenity, clouded by an overarching feeling of being unsafe. McCann makes it clear that the reader is catching a glimpse of these events through the specific lens of his narrators, who may or may not be reliable. Still, their pain rings true, regardless of its source.

Experiencing his own trauma has left McCann ruminating on the concept, and he brings it to life through the written word. McCann presents readers with a suspenseful and moving collection, one that captivates readers as much as it captures the essence of the human spirit and what it means to care for another.

Thirteen Ways of Looking' by Colum McCann

What is it: A retired New York judge, infirm and reflective, is murdered one day after lunch with his son at a restaurant. Between the protagonist's perspective leading up to the event, the detectives investigating the murder, and the examination of available CCTV footage, McCann dissects the incident into 13 separate parts.

Scope for Study: As a teacher tackling the Craft of Writing with a class of students, it would be tempting to avoid this text simply due to it's length (it's listed as short fiction within the module but it's probably more accurate to describe it as a novella). Taking his cue from the poem 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' (also featured in this module), Colum McCann gleefully attempts to hold down the English language as it squirms chaotically in his fist like a fragmentary cluster of multiplying worms. The inventiveness featured in the judge's stream-of-consciousness-like narration leaves a lot of scope for discussion and analysis - in terms of structure, style, intertextuality, characterisation, narrative voice, and reflexivity.

Page Count: 142 pages.

Source: 'Thirteen Ways of Looking' is the lead story in the 4-story collection Thirteen Ways of Looking by New York-dwelling Irish expat Colum McCann. This anthology was published in 2015.

'What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?' by Colum McCann

What is it: A writer muses on a short story he has been engaged to write about New Year's Eve. He settles on the conceit of a 26 year old marine stationed on her own in the Afghan night, and the phone-call she will make home to America to talk to her teenage son. Two stories unfold in communion with one another - the author arriving at decisions on what to write and why, and the marine preparing herself for her New Year's Eve phone-call. It's the same reflexivity alluded to in McCann's 'Thirteen Ways of Looking', only this time it's an explicit part of the story.

Scope for Study / Verdict: McCann's story is very much an exercise in metatextuality - he renders himself as a third person narrator, musing on the process of creating a short story, and tells the story within this framing device. The beauty of this is that it allows the author to describe the why and the how of each element of his story, and students will be able to essentially 'watch' the writer build a story from scratch - for example, the narrator's explanation of the characters' ages in part 6 of the story and why these are important in regards to the shape and intent of his story. This can be discussed in class in terms of why each minute detail of a story needs to be justified and used to a particular end.

Page Count: 12 pages.

Source: As per 'Thirteen Ways...', this short story is also featured in McCann's anthology Thirteen Ways of Looking, published in 2015.