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PrintMaster of the macabre
Why I love John Irving.
I’m guilty of bigamy. My 31-year-old relationship with novelist John Irving has lasted longer than either of my two marriages. Irving is my true love. I have agonized with him through each of his 14 novels. Our first date was “The World According to Garp” in 1978. Then, every two years, we have had a rendezvous — on the page.
“Last Night in Twisted River” (Random House, 2009), his newest, is rich in all the themes we Irving lovers adore: the macabre, the bear, the unsentimental sex, New England, a deadly accident, an absent parent.
However, no wrestling is included.
Did you know that Irving was selected for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater in 1992? He insists that this fact be included in every book jacket biography alongside literary accomplishments.
Irving says he writes the last sentence of his books first and works backward. In “Twisted River” the last sentence reads, “He felt that the great adventure of his life was just beginning as his father must have felt, in the throes and dire circumstances of his last night in Twisted River.”
Irving usually manages to state the title in the last line, as he did here, but knowing this sentence won’t spoil the suspense of reading the book.
I can tell you that the murder weapon was a cast-iron skillet or that the opening is about a young boy who drowns in a river full of logs, yet nothing I have written can ruin it for you. That’s because Irving is a writer of extraordinary talent, rich imagination and many surprises.
Remember the scene in “Garp” when the couple in the car, late at night, turn off the engine and slip silently into the driveway? Macabre, indeed. Irving says he learned the shock of the outlandish from Herman Melville, who believed that the “appalling” was the best storytelling.
As much as I enjoyed “Twisted River,” my favorite is still “A Prayer for Owen Meany” (1989). Irving disowned the movie adaptation and producers were forced into a name change, hence “Simon Birch.” But then, how could the screen capture that tortured character, so small in stature yet bigger than life?
Consider “Cider House Rules” (1985), printed right in the middle of abortion political tumult. He risked his career for a principle. No matter your beliefs, you have to admire his valor.
Few other writers have stuck by my side for so many years. Irving’s books are taught in colleges now, yet “Twisted River” is as fresh as undriven snow (and there is plenty of that in these pages, as the book is set in a northern Rhode Island logging camp).
“Don’t take for granted the people you love” is his constant message. His words have comforted me through office politics, parental doubt and divorce.
I’m married to John Irving, the Dickens of our times.
