For readers or moviegoers who know The Cider House Rules, a familiar character reappears in QUEEN ESTHER—John Irving’s sixteenth novel. Dr. Wilbur Larch is younger than you remember him, and the unadopted orphans at St. Cloud’s are a different cast of characters—a Viennese-born Jew, Esther Nacht, among them. Like The Cider House Rules, QUEEN ESTHER is a historical novel with a political theme. Anti-Semitism shapes Esther’s life, not only in Vienna. Esther’s story is fated to inter...| John Irving
Juan Diego—a fourteen-year-old boy, who was born and grew up in Mexico—has a thirteen-year-old sister. Her name is Lupe, and she thinks she sees what’s coming—specifically, her own future and her brother’s. Lupe is a mind reader; she doesn’t know what everyone is thinking, but she knows what most people are thinking. Regarding what has happened, as opposed to what will, Lupe is usually right about the past; without your telling her, she knows all the worst things that have happene...| John Irving
As a novelist, I know something that works better than any synopsis of what a new novel is about. You would be better off reading the first few paragraphs of the first chapter, because that’s all the author wanted you to know about the book before you start reading it for yourself. Believe me: the author just wants you to begin reading. The post Avenue of Mysteries: A note from John Irving appeared first on John Irving.| John Irving
“His most daringly political, sexually transgressive, and moving novel in well over a decade.”–Vanity Fair"| John Irving
A Brazilian law student — Hugo Freitas — read The Righteous Mind and turned a section of chapter 12 into a cartoon. He takes the exact text and illustrates it to show how two sib…| The Righteous Mind