'He Hit Me From Behind..My Head Hit The Ground'

On June 28th, 2014, multi-award winning Irish author McCann was the main speaker at a conference in New Haven, Connecticut. Returning to his hotel after dinner at a restaurant, he came across a couple fighting on the street. A man was beating a woman, so McCann walked over and told the man to stop. To McCann's surprise, he did. Later that day, McCann was talking to his son on the phone when he was attacked from behind by the same man. He remembers nothing about it other than waking up two and a half hours after the conversation with his son, as he was being pushed into a MRI machine. His injuries were devastating. The man had knocked him unconscious, but also fractured his cheekbone and knocked out all his teeth. “I was knocked unconscious. Knocked out all my teeth; fractured cheekbone; severe contusions,” McCann says. Back to full health, and remarkably philosophical about it all, Colum talks to Matt about Thirteen Ways Of Looking, his new book of stories, one of which is about a man attacked on the street after leaving a restaurant.