Last Night in Twisted River

Okay. I suppose I am not a true John Irving fan although I did love "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I am an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction for over 50 years and this is one of the few books that I could not finish. While I know that a good number of accomplished writers vary from the story line occasionally. I found it particularly frustrating that the story line too often vanishes to a past and future life of the character Danny. And then after several pages of rather dull and boring info about the past and future, the present story line continues. Not a page turner. Not even interesting.

I listened to the book on audio-disc and the narrator was great- at times reminding me of Peter Coyote. The book was long and wonderful filled with three great best friend male characters and the relationships between them. Much of it seemed, esp. in the first half, almost a 'poke' at the author's own career. Really loved listening to the book and will now do something that I rarely do: reread a book. It's been way too long since I read GARP so long ago! Thank you John Irving for the wonderful new book. I loved it and am going to send it to my roommate who's old volvo's gearshift nob popped off all the time!

A veteran enthusiast of John Irving's novels will yield to this story as a ballad and homage to his entire body of work--sprayed with a mist of Dylan. Readers unfamiliar with Irving may not be impressed--they will have a lot more to complain about. So don't start here if you are largely uninitiated with this author. Begin with his fourth book, the tour de force, The World According to Garp (Modern Library) or his masterpiece, A Prayer for Owen Meany (Modern Library). And then work your way through his oeuvre. The more Irving you have read, the more poignant and personally enriching is the symbolism and recurrent themes of this lugubrious tale; you will be less distracted by his prolixity. The opening epigraph is from Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue:" I had a job in the great north woods Working as a cook for a spell But I never did like it all that much And one day the ax just fell. I credit this stanza, as well as a sizable chunk of the song, as informing the story. After I read the last page of this novel, the lyrics from Dylan's song floated back to me. Although not a direct transposition (not at all), you could lift a considerable portion of that song, shake it up Irving style, and see them rising in the novel. And as Dylan stated (regarding this song), "You've got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room, and there's very little you can't imagine not happening.'" Irving's non-linear narrative mirrors that statement. A fifty-year period (1950's to 2005) is covered, but it ebbs and flows non-sequentially within each section. (Sometimes on the same page.) And the unimaginable takes shape. I come from the veteran enthusiast's point of view. The familiar chords and refrains abound--bears; tragic accidents; his love affair with the semi-colon; fathers and sons; absent parents; odd couplings; hands; furry creatures; and working class cultures (that's just a start). Critical analysis aside, I was emotionally riveted by this story. My experience of loving this book went beyond the novel itself--I embraced the connection to his oeuvre. It is a river that flows into the sea. Although it is a tremendous story, it can't be entirely perceived in isolation. I frequently uttered, "Here we go" as my heart stopped, slowed, sped up, froze, and slammed into the channels of my soul. And like a river's flow, this epic journey expresses what is always changing, always the same with Irving's literature. For seasoned Irving readers, the vintage ribald humor will be noticeably tempered; his farce is minimized, and the story is less picaresque than usual, more mournful. He is still the master of telling a tragic event with bawdy details, but there is less rogue here, more lament. There are outlaw characters, but the rebel prose is not as evident. New readers may even describe it as cloying and overwritten. It should have bothered me, but the story overrode my criticism. He gets in the way of hims

After a three novel fixation on sex both domestic and abroad, John Irving makes a triumphant return to the literary landscape of The World According to Garp (Modern Library) in his twelfth novel, "Last Night in Twisted River". Father Dominic Baciagalupo, a cook for a logging community, and his son Daniel are co-protagonists in a story about manhood, family, love, friendship, a whole lot of cooking, and of course sex (though the sexual exploits of the characters don't overwhelm the story). At first it's the world of logging that pulls you into the story, much as the waters of Twisted River pull young logger Angel Pope into an early death in the novel's first sentence. The first section of the book, set in the 1950s in the far north of New Hampshire, is absolutely captivating. As with Irving's early novels, a bear plays an important and almost mythical role. The middle section follows Dominic and now writer Danny in an odyssey brought about by their last night in Twisted River, the events of which cause them to vacate the logging town. Unrepentant logger Ketchum, who remains in the woods, plays a significant role in both lives, despite trying to keep his distance. Like TS Garp, Danny becomes a novelist. In the last half of the book the writer struggles with the tragedies of his life - both accidental ("it's a world of accidents", warns his father) and arranged (despite the best efforts of the ever-vigilant Ketchum) - and with crafting novels, striking a balance between the autobiographical and the imagination. Again, the result sweeps you along in its current. It's not quite a perfect novel - the middle section is a bit choppy as Irving moves back and forth in time in the lives of both Dominic and Danny, but the beginning and last third are so good that you'll forgive any minor structural flaws. As a benefit, you'll also pick up a few Italian cooking recipes along the way and perhaps embark on a search for the perfect pizza. In my review of Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone: A novel, I stated that the protege had outwritten the master. With "Last Night in Twisted River", the master has come back strong. If novels like "The Fourth Hand" and "Until I Find You" put you off of Irving, come back for "Twisted River". You'll be glad you did.

It's 1954 in a New Hampshire logging camp. The main characters are a father and son. The father (Dominic) is the logging camp cook and his 12-year-old son (Daniel) is an obsessive worrier. The son's fears create a huge "mistake" that will cause them to change their names and go on the run for the next 50 years. At the heart, this is a story of a father's deep and unending love for his son; Irving has dedicated this book to his own son, Everett. The characters are classic John Irving; Ketchum, Six-Pack Pam, Lady Sky, Dominic and Danny Angel are all outsiders who see the world more clearly than the insiders. The novel moves slowly back and forth in time. At times, it may move a bit too slow with all the detail. The book could probably be edited to a third of its length but readers have come to expect this detail in an Irving novel. Keep reading! Irving is a master at connecting the details and characters to create a book with a deep message. I'm still thinking about some of his elegantly written lines and how they sum up the novel, life and history. Is Danny Angel, John Irving? No. But it's interesting that Angel is a famous author with a book that won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. And a large part of this book is a description of Angel's writing style and habits and what it's like to be a famous author. The endless question of what is truth and what is fiction in his novels, the fans and the solitary nature of writing. Many novelists use authors as main characters to bloviate on the rigors of writing a novel. But not Irving; it never feels preachy or mysterious. It's a lot of hard work and being able to "be more daring and write about the darker subjects". It is obvious Irving has done the hard work and he has written/rewritten masterfully about dark subjects.

True fans of John Irving will applaud this victory lap as the one-time wunderkind of contemporary literature comfortably enfolds himself in the mantle of elder statesman, having fun with his fans and critics along the way. Longtime Irving followers will enjoy seeing how he echoes past themes and trajectory of his own career in telling the story of Daniel Baciagalupo, aka Danny Angel, a novelist who scoffs at the media obsession with sorting the autobiographical elements of his fiction from that parts "that were `merely' made up." But yes, here's a fictional character who had much the same academic career as Irving (wrestling, prep school, university, Iowa Writer's Workshop, teaching venue), achieved bestsellerdom and prosperity with his fourth novel, tackled explosive political issues like abortion in his subsequent novels, got involved in movies, lived part-time in Canada, and so on. Part of the fun for fans is seeing how he departs from these familiar elements of his career and his fiction. The ominous "undertoad" from The World According to Garp is recast here as a blue Mustang automobile. The bears that figured so prominently in early Irving novels are waiting in the wings here, but left waiting as offstage characters only. Onstage, however, the key character of Injun Jane is cast in a scene that brought to mind one with Susie the Bear from The Hotel New Hampshire, although here the consequences kick the novel into high gear. The novel unfolds more deliberately than fans of earlier works may remember or prefer, dangling meaty morsels of plot but then diverting and eventually circling back later to fill in the blanks. The slower pace adds to the richness of the experience, though, and Irving's trademark vivid characters, earthy dialog, and baroque plot twists do not disappoint. And the book has a gorgeous structure, with an end that leads right back to the beginning. With Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving's work has mellowed and ripened from a major vintage to a classic one, something to be savored.