From the Publisher
From the author of A Widow for One Year, A
Prayer for Owen Meany and other acclaimed novels, comes a
story of a father and a son - fugitives in 20th-century North
America.
In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in
northern New Hampshire, a twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local
constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his
father become fugitives, pursued by the constable. Their lone
protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver,
who befriends them.
In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in
Twisted River - John Irving's twelfth novel - depicts
the recent half-century in the United States as a world "where
lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their
course." From the novel's taut opening sentence - "The young
Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated
too long." - to its elegiac final chapter, what distinguishes
Last Night in Twisted River is the author's
unmistakable voice, the inimitable voice of an accomplished
storyteller.
About the Author
John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the
Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book
Award three times - winning once, in 1980, for the novel
The World According to Garp. He also received an
O. Henry Award, in 1981, for the short story "Interior Space." In
1992, Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame
in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted
Screenplay for The Cider House Rules.