Ascension - Softcover

Steven Galloway

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0676974600 ISBN 13: 9780676974607

Publisher: Vintage Canada, 2004

Synopsis

A New York Times Bestseller

It is the summer of 1976 and Salvo Ursari, a man of retirement age, is walking on a taut wire strung between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. This riveting moment opens the story of Salvo Ursari, a Transylvanian boy who found his way to the competitive world of the American circus. Ascension combines heart-pounding descriptions of high-altitude acrobatics with mesmerizing detail of Romany and circus culture.

About this title

Review:

In Steven Galloway's Ascension the story of Salvo Usari, a Romany tightrope walker, begins where it ends: almost 1,400 feet about the streets of New York City in a fictional 1976 performance on a wire suspended between the World Trade Center towers. From this first moment, Galloway establishes a careful balance between a thrilling adventure story enriched by circus lore and ca haracter-driven tale reflecting Salvo's complex life and remarkable immigrant history.

Leaving New York, Galloway shifts to Savlo's youth in Transylvania, circa 1919. Salvo's father, Miksa, has taught his nine-year-old son the essential myths that form the Rom, or gypsy, identity, but the legends cannot prepare the boy for an abrupt tragedy, an accident at a gadje church, that leads to the murder of his father and mother and to Salvo's long separation from his brother and baby sister. Salvo climbs to the pinnacle of the mammoth church steeple, tears out his soul--flinging it towards God--and begins a wandering life. Galloway then traces the paths of the Usari siblings over the years until they are rejoined at work as a family of tightrope walkers, eventually achieving acclaim in the Fisher-Fielding circus in the United States. But even reunited the Usaris cannot escape tragedy and further death. In the end, Salvo must return to the wire alone to pacify his unquiet mind.

Galloway's execution of story and character is nearly flawless throughout, and his narrative, like Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, captures the essence of the 20th-century immigrant odyssey. But it is the blending of Romany folk tales and well-researched circus craft with this otherwise powerful narrative that defines Ascension and makes its unique contribution to literary art. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Booklist:

Few novels can match the heart-stopping opening scene of this one, in which master tightrope walker Salvo Ursari traverses a thin wire strung between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Salvo learned his trade in the streets of Budapest after losing his parents in 1919 to a fire set by his gypsy-hating neighbors. He and his siblings become a featured act at carnivals in Europe and then are offered a prized contract with the storied Fisher-Felding Circus in 1938. They immigrate to America, where Salvo falls in love with wealthy Anna Simpson, who eventually throws over her privileged lifestyle to marry the circus performer. Their children eventually join the troupe, although the eldest child keeps his epileptic seizures hidden, a secret that leads to disaster during their most famous and dangerous trick, "the House." Although Galloway's second novel (following Finnie Walsh, 2001) contains interesting, entertaining material on Romany culture and circus life, it proves no match for the crystalline passages devoted to the death-defying stunts of the tightrope walkers, which are truly mesmerizing. Joanne Wilkinson
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About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0676974600
• ISBN 13: 9780676974607
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288