Avenue of Mysteries - John Irving
Almost no one had ever heard of John Irving before The World According to Garp. After Garp, almost every English-language reader seemed to know his name. They eagerly awaited the release of subsequent novels such as A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Fourth Hand, and looked backward to older works like Setting Free the Bears. All that’s to say that this reader, at least, has had a thirty-plus year relationship with Irving. Some novels have pleased – the aforementioned Meany or A Widow for One Year, for instance – while others (think The Hotel New Hampshire and Last Night In Twisted River) seemed to miss the mark. Irving, it seems, gets on a “kick” once in a while, though he hasn’t written about wrestling in several decades.
Irving’s back, with Avenue of Mysteries, and the question of the day is “Hit? or Miss?” I’m afraid that I, at least, must lean toward the “miss” end of the scale. But first, let’s talk about the book…
