A propulsive novel of rupture and repair in the digital age delving into a hidden world deep
under the ocean—from the New York Times bestselling author of Apeirogon and Let the Great World
Spin . “Everything gets fixed and we all stay broken.” Anthony Fennell an Irish
journalist and playwright is assigned to cover the story of the underwater cables that carry
the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words images transactions memes voices
viruses—travels through the tiny fiber optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break at an
unfathomable depth. Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa where he
uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological
world. He meets a fellow Irishman John Conway the chief of mission on a cable repair ship.
The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary
depths. He is also in love with a South African actress Zanele who must leave to go on her
own literary adventure to London. When the boat is sent up the coast to repair a series of
major underwater breaks both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news
that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea they are forced to confront the most elemental
questions of life love absence belonging and the perils of our severed connections. Can we
in our fractured world reweave ourselves out of the thin broken threads of our pasts? Can the
ruptured things awaken us from our despair? Resoundingly simple and turbulent at the same
time Twist is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of the great
storytellers of our times.
