Last Night in Twisted River
“a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.”| John Irving
“a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.”| John Irving
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
Superior fiction asks three things of the novelist: Vigorous feeling for life as we live it. Then imaginative force, strong enough to subvert and rebuild unhindered. And then--but this is rare and so essential that we might call it the "reality principle" of fiction-- shrewd sense to keep the first two locked in stubborn love with each other –Terrence Des Pres The post An Introduction to John Irving appeared first on John Irving.| 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 first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He has written sixteen novels over the course of his prolific career, the majority of which have been international bestsellers. In 1980, Irving won a National Book Award for his novel The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. The post About the Author 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
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.| John Irving
The Last Chairlift | John Irving
I think the early signs of my interest in ghosts are the epilogues I’ve written to many of my novels — I love epilogues. They are a way to keep the dead alive. The first draft of the Epilogue to The World According to Garp was twice as long as any of the other chapters. As Garp writes: “An epilogue is more than a body count. An epilogue, in the disguise of wrapping up the past, is really a way of warning us about the future.” Think of the ghosts in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. That...| John Irving
In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will...| John Irving
