I stumbled on this book at Marden’s store (surplus & salvage store) and noticed the author also wrote The World According To Garp and The Cider House Rules, so I was intrigued to read this one.
What a great book for a variety of reasons. One is that I can’t stop thinking about it even though I finished reading it a few days ago. There were times I would laugh out loud while reading passages. Irving has a sense of humor that surprises me – when I least expect humor he drops it in – and it is funny.
Yet there are some pretty dark sides to this book, a troubling book at times that this family of misfits continues to have to deal with throughout their lives. Their family story is told from one of the children looking back on his life many years later. His strange relationship with his sister Franny. His fathers view of the world – a very innocent view and it gets them into trouble again and again. And his other siblings and mother and how they managed to live together.
Oh yes, there are two bears in this story that are both “head scratchers” in their own way.
There were two books in the Marden’s pile from John Irving, now I am on to the other one, A Widow for One Year. But I need to read something else before I take on another Irving so I can let this one “steep in my cup” for a while.
Yes, read it. It is a great story.
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