My darling daughter offered me John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River as a present quite some time ago knowing I have so very much liked his novels (especially The Cider House Rules). I've been trying to squeeze it in for quite a long time and was half way through when I had to put it aside to address those pesky book group choices! There were moments in the middle of this fairly long novel when I felt it was unnecessarily wordy and therefore dragged a bit, but by the time I finished it, I liked it an awful lot and was really pleased to have read it. You think it is about one character primarily, but others begin to loom larger, and the story just gets to you. So many connections, so many coincidences as our lives tend to have them. Twisted River begins the book as well as many threads that sustain it. Many of the characters are identified by their names as well as referred to by their "life occupation": Dominic is both "the father" and "the cook"; his son Daniel/Danny becomes "the writer" (and how much of him is Irving? a tedious exercise which really doesn't matter, I think....); Ketchum is "the river driver" and several other references. There is love and loss and running away from danger, there are encounters both fortuitous and strange. And then at the end of this long tale, the final pages begin to reveal the first pages, and the writer Daniel Kiss of the Wolf (I'll let you read the book to figure that one out) shows the genesis of his latest novel which -- oh my -- recreates the first chapter of the novel you have bought into as fiction, but whose? At what point do I the reader enter wholeheartedly into fiction and begin to live a story? If you know Irving, then you know there is social commentary and characters trying to understand themselves and love and messy situations. And you know you'll end up liking the tale.

Putting in the mail along with another book received as part of Authors beginning with the letter I.... happy travels!

Taking out of the "I" books to share in my library!