Plot Twists

THE BOOK: WHEN you pick up a John Irving novel you have to be prepared to experience something strange.

Prostitutes, wrestling, bears and deadly accidents often feature.

Although the stories may have some weird ingredients, Irving writes in such an engaging way that I am always prepared to suspend my disbelief.

A Prayer for Owen Meany and A Widow for One Year are two of the most memorable novels I have ever read, and I could happily read them both again, so I was looking forward to the writer’s latest offering, Last Night in Twisted River.

Although the novel starts dramatically, with a teenage boy falling into the river in a log-rolling accident, I felt the story started a little slowly.

But Irving writes in such a captivating way that I was prepared to stick with it – right to the end of the 658 pages.

Last Night in Twisted River is set in 1954, and begins in the cookhouse of an isolated sawmill settlement in New Hampshire.

It’s not long before an anxious 12-year-old boy makes the fatal mistake of confusing the local constable’s girlfriend for – you’ve guessed it – a bear.

He and his father go on the run and head to Boston, then Vermont and Toronto and they are pursued over the years by the dogged constable.

But one of the loggers appoints himself their protector and does his best to watch over them.

Taken at face value, the plot perhaps sounds a little lame, but Irving is a master when it comes to creating realistic characters and atmospheric locations.

Irving fanatics will also enjoy spotting one of the central characters, who is a novelist with a career that quite closely follows the author’s own.

In a way it doesn’t matter what the setting is because you are bound to get swept along by Irving’s colourful prose, which could quite easily be described as a twisted river itself.

Last Night in Twisted River might never match the success of The World According to Garp or The Cider House Rules, but it’s a fascinating addition to the author’s backlist.

THE AUTHOR: John Irving, now 68, was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942.

His career as a novelist took off in 1978 when The World According to Garp achieved international success.

Some of the writer’s novels, including A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules, have been bestsellers, and several novels have been made into films, including The Cider House Rules, starring Michael Caine, Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron. Irving won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award in 1999 for his script of The Cider House Rules. Some novels are set in and around Phillips Exeter Academy, where Irving grew up as the son of faculty member Colin Irving. He was in the Exeter wrestling programme and wrestling often crops up in his novels.

Irving’s career as a writer began at the age of 26 with the publication of his first novel, Setting Free the Bears.

In the late 1960s, he studied with Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa, but it was not until his fourth novel, The World According to Garp, that he gained proper recognition. The novel was a finalist for the American Book Award in 1979 and won the National Book Foundation’s award for paperbacks the following year.

Four of Irving’s novels have reached number one on The New York Times’ bestseller list, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules, A Widow for One Year, and The Fourth Hand.

* Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving is published by Black Swan, price £7.99.