Irving Son Of The Circus

Irving, John. The Hotel New Hampshire. Transworld Pub, 1986.
20cm 0-552-99209-7 From the Back Cover Quirky, bizarre, tragic, fiendishly funny, The Hotel New Hampshire is anything but a conventional family saga, though a family saga it certainly is. The Berry family are different. Love abounds - both healthy and incestuous. It is the overwhelming desire of the Berry father to run a hotel, which he does, with dubious success in both a former girls' school in New Hampshire, and in Vienna. It is the Berry children who grab the readers' attention, sympathies and love - all five of them: Frank (the eldest), Franny (the weirdest), John (the narrator), Lily (the writer) and Egg (the youngest). When Irving, or rather John, writes 'Frank's queer, Franny's weird, Lily's small and Egg is Egg' the initiated reader can do no other than shout a deafening 'yes, I know what you mean!' From there on, the reader is held spellbound as the family Labrador, Sorrow, is first stuffed then becomes the cruel victim of a plane crash; and as John and Franny realise their incestuous desires. Stunningly readable, mercilessly involving, The Hotel New Hampshire is people with characters - and bears - that you'll never forget. About the Author John Irving John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a 'grim' child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. 'It was so simple,' he remembers. 'Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.' In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, about a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo, was followed by The Water-Method Man, a comic tale of a man with a urinary complaint, and The 158-Pound Marriage, which exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved international recognition with The World According to Garp, which he hoped would 'cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts'. The Hotel New Hampshire is a startlingly original family saga, and The Cider House Rules is the story of Doctor Wilbur Larch - saint, obstetrician, founder of an orphanage, ether addict and abortionist - and of his favourite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. A Prayer for Owen Meany features the most unforgettable character Irving has yet created. A Son of the Circus is an extraordinary evocation of modern day India. John Irving's latest and most ambitious novel is A Widow for One Year. A collection of John Irving's shorter writing, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, was published in 1993. Irving has also written the screenplays for The Cider House Rules and A Son of the Circus, and wrote about his experiences in the world of movies in his memoir My Movie Business. Irving has had a life-long passion for wrestling, and he plays a wrestling referee in the film of The World According to Garp. In his memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, John Irving writes about his life as a wrestler, a novelist and as a wrestling coach. He now writes full-time, has three children and lives in Vermont and Toronto..

Paperback, very good.

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Irving John. A Son of the Circus. Random House, 9/1/1994 0:00:00.
Hardcover in very good condition. Clean and unmarked inside and out. Boards moderately worn. Spine still squeaks on opening cover. Binding tight with no roll at all. Dustcover was damaged and repaired then covered with a protective wrapper. Has an interesting gift inscription that lends some sort of charm to the book. Gauffered fore edges. ; Thick 8vo; 633 pages. 0679434968.

First Edition; Second Printing, Hardcover, Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket; Light smudge on top edge. Couple of chips on dustjacket..

[SW: John Irving A Son Of The Circus,]

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Irving, John: A Son of the Circus, 1994 Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A. Random House Inc
0679434968

Hard Cover Very Good+ in Very Good dust jacket Edition: First Edition, Second Printing The book is very nice, slightly bumped spine ends, light use. Contents are clean and unmarked. The jacket has some rubbing and very light edgewear. This prolific writer has given us an exciting and rambling tale ( over 600 pages) filled with the color of India, mixed with the sophistication of Toronto. Born in Bombay, and sent to medical school in Vienna, Dr Daruwalla is a 59 year old orthopedic surgeon and citizen who lives in Toronto. Periodically he returns to Bombay to nuture mostly crippled children. Once, twenty years ago Dr. Daruwalla was the examining physician in two murder cases in Goa.Now 20 years later he will be reacquainted with the murderer. Oversize book, a little extra shipping.

[SW: INDIA FICTION AMERICAN FICTIONAL WORKS]

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Irving, John: A Widow for One Year, New York Modern Library 2003
ISBN: 0812968573 Fine

Cloth, xiv, 537 pp.; 21 cm. Includes an Introduction by the Author. AS NEW. Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. "Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a 'difficult' woman. By no means is she conventionally 'nice,' but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason. A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She's about to fall in love for the first time. Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief. / John Winslow Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. He is the author of nine novels, among them The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A Son of the Circus. Mr. Irving is married and has three sons; he lives in Toronto and in southern Vermont." - Publisher. First edition thus Fine Hard Cover 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall Collectible

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