Books like This side of brightness by Colum McCann

In the early 1900s, Nathan Walker leaves the Okefenokee swamps of Georgia for New York City, where he joins a diverse crew of sandhogs to tunnel beneath the East River, connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. The men—black, white, Irish, and Italian—work together below while keeping distance above, until a dramatic accident bonds Walker to his fellow laborers, an alliance that shapes three generations. Decades later, Treefrog, a homeless man haunted by a secret, survives a harsh winter beneath the city’s subway, employing grim but inventive tactics—killing rats, scavenging soda cans, washing in the snow—to stay alive. Nathan Walker’s early career and Treefrog’s present survival interweave over seventy years, revealing themes of love, crime, and social taboos. The narratives converge into a tale of family, race, and redemption set against the backdrop of New York’s underground world.

First publish date: 1998