Colum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imational, love and loss, past and present, in this arresting novel. With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows the tracks of his father--a rootless photographer--as he moved from war-torn Spain to the barren plains of Mexico--where he met Conor's mother--and finally back to Ireland for the story's heartrending climax.