Description
Author: John Irving
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: 1999 (First Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition)
Place of Publication: New York
Pages: 425 pages
Condition: Very Good. Clean text, solid binding, light edge and cover wear consistent with careful reading. No markings.
Description:
A sweeping, emotionally layered novel from A Widow for One Year, one of John Irving’s most ambitious and affecting works. Moving between postwar New England and the later lives shaped by love, loss, and memory, the novel explores how childhood trauma echoes into adulthood—and how storytelling itself becomes a means of survival.
At its center is Ruth Cole, the daughter of a damaged writer, navigating a world shaped by grief, secrecy, and complicated intimacy. Irving weaves themes of sexuality, artistic obsession, mortality, and resilience into a richly textured narrative that rewards patient, thoughtful readers. Both intimate and expansive, this is a novel about how we carry the past—and how we learn, imperfectly, to live with it.
A strong choice for readers who appreciate literary fiction with psychological depth and emotional courage.