Twist A novel

National Book Award winner McCann (Apeirogon) offers an intriguing story of a journalist sent to report on the complex work of repairing the underwater cables that carry the world's information. Anthony Fennell, 48, a struggling novelist and heavy drinker, flies to Cape Town to board a cable repair ship, hoping the assignment will boost his stagnating career. He meets fellow Irishman John Conway, the chief of mission, and John's girlfriend, Zanele Ombassa, a promising Black South African actor who soon leaves for England to be in a play. Conway will be dead not long after the reporting assignment ends, Fennell tells the reader, and his narration amounts to an attempt to make sense of what happened after they embarked to fix a series of cable breaks. The mission grows particularly fraught when Conway determines that a cable is broken at the bottom of an underwater canyon, far too deep to dive, and attempts to recover it with a grappling hook ("A trip to Hades armed with a piece of steel," as Fennell describes the operation). Conway then learns Zanele has been attacked onstage and is in the hospital, but cannot leave the ship because they're too far from shore. McCann skillfully ratchets up the uneasiness on board and later adds a provocative twist, taking the novel in an unexpected direction. Readers will be dazzled. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. (Mar.)