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Last Night in Twisted River: A Novel |  | Author: John Irving
Publisher: Random House
List Price: $28.00
Buy New: $10.97
as of 11/24/2009 07:02 CST details
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Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 67
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6
ISBN: 1400063841
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400063840
ASIN: 1400063841
Publication Date: October 27, 2009 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, October 2009: A long, delicious trip to the land of Irving is hands-down the best way to begin the month of October. A trio of tragic events (though the prize for most hell-shocking goes to the third) exiles widower and camp cook Dominic Baciagalupo and his son Danny from a mid-century logging outpost called Twisted River. They leave behind the Bunyan-esque lumberjack Ketchum--a gruff, eccentric, dyed-in-the-wool Yankee--who remains their sole connection to the past. What's next neither father nor son knows: their rootless existence moves swiftly in and out of New England, tied ostensibly to jobs for Dominic and schools for Danny, but it seems one foot is always back in those New Hampshire woods. Theirs is a restless, richly observed journey, crowned by a reckoning no one could predict. Few writers can match John Irving's knack for denouement, and in Last Night in Twisted River, his extraordinary ending is made all the more powerful by a story that feasts on language, life, and love. --Anne Bartholomew
Product Description
In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County–to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto–pursued by the implacable 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 living replica of Coos County, 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, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving’s breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp.
What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author’s unmistakable voice–the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: “We don’t always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly–as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth–the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.”
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 52
 When Exactly Will This "Last night" Take Place? November 23, 2009
Julie Blattenbauer (seattle, wa)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have been expecting it for some time now. Hasn't John Irving been around for a quite a long time?
 Don't bother. November 23, 2009
sarar (Alabama)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Tell me what I am missing. I did not like this book. Did Kurt V. write it? The style is so close. For such a good looking, America hating man, I hope he will enjoy his equally America hating Canada. Maybe I should have read some of his previous books but I am not into abortion... however, I am into bears.
Last Night in Twisted River November 19, 2009
Joseph W. Aubele (SoCal)
The latest of John Irving's novels is thoroughly engaging right from the start; and there is much that all fans of Mr. Irving will enjoy. However, this novel is not for everyone ~ including some who have enjoyed Mr. irving's previous works.
The extended discussions on the process of writing may not appeal to some, but for those that care about such things (and I count myself as one of "those") then this is a five-star piece of fiction.
I especially enjoyed the little . . . twist near the end . . . regarding the novel itself (or at least the nature of the beginning of the novel).
 Best Since Owen Meany.. He's Back! November 18, 2009
Nicki Heskin (Southern California)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Like many reviewers here, I am a long-time Irving fan who has been dismayed by the releases of his books since his peak with A Prayer for Owen Meany. Owen Meany is my all-time favorite fiction book and each time since I have anticipated the next release, only to be disappointed. This time was no different, except I was finally rewarded for hanging in there.
Last Night on Twisted River was simply wonderful. It's no Owen Meany, but in my mind, really no book is, so that's a pretty high standard. While it lacks the sheer woven artistry of the story construction in Owen Meany or in Garp, it is a solid epic story like the Cider House Rules. I really cared about this characters, and watched their fate unfold in Irving's characteristically bizarre and disturbing yet somehow believable and logical way.
For Irving fans, they'll find many of his story stand-bys like an odd reliance on bears in the storyline, wrestling, and the sexual initiation of young boys by older women. This book has a heavier dose of liberal/libertarian politics than I've found in his previous books, which (aside from the heavy abortion topic in Cider House Rules, which was balanced even while taking a stand) could be off-putting for fans of George W. Bush. The book offers some pretty strong criticism of the aftermath of 9/11 and of the state of the nation. Even 8 years later, I've not seen many books deal with this still raw issue quite to blatantly (not that's it's inappropriate, but just surprising). Interestingly, this part the book almost feels out of date given all that has happened since Bush left office.
The story itself is both tragic and heroic like many of his tales, but I'll not get too much into the plot, as there are likely many other sources for that on this Amazon page as well as in other reviews, other than to say I loved it, which has not been the case since Owen Meany. The odd combination of the backgrounds of logging and restaurants, and the odd mix of cultural exposures somehow added up in the story to something truly engaging (unlike the equally odd mixture of tattoos and pipe organs in his last novel!).
One element that I thoroughly enjoyed in this book was his exploration of the world of the fiction writer. The notions of whether an author could write from his own history and the events of the world around him without being autobiographical, or fully biographical was fascinating. He challenged us to understand that a writer could *base* a character on someone, or on events from the authors history and still create beings that are, in his words, "wholly imagined." Given his own personal history at Exeter and wrestling and his propensity to name his leading male characters John or Jack (not in this story, unless that was Ketchum's never-known first name!), it was about time he address this issue. Because you sometimes have to wonder what sort of odd bear-laden, sexually confusing childhood this man had! Maybe he did, or maybe he didn't, but either way I'm left respecting his privacy a bit more and certainly understanding the world of the author at least a little better.
I was however driven to read his book or memoirs just after, My Movie Business: A Memoir, which expanded on this theme even more.
As anyone who enjoys Irving will attest, there is way too much here to describe in just a short review. But these are a just a few of the things that stuck with me to share. But I am delighted, for the first time in a quite a while to encourage Irving fans to get back on the horse and get this book. You won't be disappointed... now let's hope it lasts!
good irving book November 18, 2009
big lic (michigan)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
John irving is a very underated author Twisted River kept me glued to the pages.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 52
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