In the darkness we sat with our backs against the rough wooden panels and slipped our feet in our father's shoes, let his sleeves touch our ears ... some bright hallelujah in the shitbox of what the ...

Well, that’s probably what it seemed like to the onlookers below. Colum McCann fictionalised Petit’s balancing act in his 2009 novel Let the Great World Spin. Petit turns up in his latest novel too.

Phillipe Petit’s highwire walk between the Twin Towers provides the backdrop for this rich portrait of the unlikely connections among a group of New Yorkers in the 1970s. Since 1944, the goal of the ...