new john irving book review

Review: John Irving writes long tale ‘The Last Chairlift’

“real life is so sloppy — it’s full of coincidences. things just happen, random things that have no connection to one another. in good fiction, isn’t everything connected to everything else.

By ROB MERRILL, Associated Press

“The Last Chairlift” by John Irving (Simon & Schuster)

After 54 years and 15 novels, John Irving’s finally done it. He’s written a book longer than most editions of “Moby-Dick.” And by the time you’re done reading it, you’ll chuckle every time you see the hyphen in Melville’s title.

This Cape Cod bookseller wants to help you find your next read

Book club’s next read is ‘dead flip’ by sara farizan.

It’s difficult to do justice to this book in a short review. Every Irving fan will read it and even readers trying Irving for the first time will find it an accessible introduction to the New England-born novelist whose work has always been stuffed with serious themes like religion, sex and politics, tempered by a fair dose of satire and absurdity, delivered by narrators in an endearing, matter-of-fact prose.

At its heart “The Last Chairlift” is a love story, telling almost the entire life story of its narrator, Adam Brewster, himself a writer growing up in Exeter, New Hampshire, who wrestles, becomes a bestselling novelist, wins an Oscar and earns Canadian citizenship, not unlike Mr. Irving himself. But as narrator Adam admits: “Real life is so sloppy — it’s full of coincidences. Things just happen, random things that have no connection to one another. In good fiction, isn’t everything connected to everything else?” In “The Last Chairlift,” Irving tries to do both — tell a fictional story that is chock full of random events, but make it feel like nothing is random at all in hindsight, as Adam relates it all to us.

At the beginning of the book, Adam doesn’t know who his biological father is. His mother falls in love with an English teacher at Exeter Academy, whom Adam admires for his diminutive stature and his distaste for downhill skiing. Henceforth the man, whose full name is Elliot Barlow, is referred to mostly as “the snowshoer.” (Adam’s mom, called Little Ray, is also very small. She’s a ski instructor, always doing lunges and wall sits around the house and decamping for the winter months to live in Manchester, New Hampshire, closer to the ski mountain that pays the bills.)

Without spoiling too much, it turns out that Ray isn’t really into men anymore, if she ever was, and while “the snowshoer” is a constant companion for the rest of her days and a father figure to Adam, it’s a ski patroller named Molly who captures Little Ray’s heart.

True to form for an Irving novel, sex is a frequent topic of discussion and driver of the plot. There’s an unusual frankness among Adam’s extended family about his formative sexual experiences, which are recounted in great detail and recalled at various stages of his life. There’s also an orgasm that even “the white whale wouldn’t have survived” overheard by guests at Little Ray’s wedding to the snowshoer, and while the narrative tracks Adam’s life, chronologically, it lingers during sexually charged political moments in history — from Roe v. Wade to President Reagan ignoring the AIDS crisis to the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church.

Oh, and don’t forget the ghosts! The novel begins and ends with a reference to them and they play all sorts of roles in between. A real-life establishment in Aspen, Colorado, called The Hotel Jerome is haunted by various important figures in Adam’s life, many of which he features in a pair of screenplays he writes that are included in the novel, but which are based on his real life. Screenplay line spacing helps the 889 pages turn faster. It’s not that you want “The Last Chairlift” to end, exactly, but you do want to see where all the characters end up off after that final ride up the mountain.

Conversation

This discussion has ended. please join elsewhere on boston.com, most popular.

The Bill O’Brien era at Boston College gets started Monday night

Move-in weekend 2024: Live updates from Boston

YouTuber stealth camps in the middle of the Bourne Rotary

14-year-old killed when SUV crashes into boat trailer on the Cape

Market Basket gives out bonuses in honor of the 10-year anniversary of strikes

In Related News

Edna O’Brien, Irish literary giant who wrote 'The Country Girls,' dies at 93

Book Review: 'There's Going to Be Trouble' explores the long afterlife of political violence

Review & Setlist: Guster relives its eras at MGM Music Hall at Fenway

Boston.com newsletter signup boston.com logo.

Stay up to date with everything Boston. Receive the latest news and breaking updates, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.

Enter your email address

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Author Interviews

John irving on his new novel 'the last chairlift'.

Scott Simon

John Irving became a best selling writer with "The World According To Garp." He talks with NPR's Scott Simon talks his final novel, "The Last Chairlift," which includes many of his trademark themes.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Suggestions

The last chairlift review: john irving’s unconventional family epic.

The novel reads as a final, all-encompassing summary of Irving’s concerns and obsessions.

Then again, Irving’s novels have seemed like “greatest hits” collections for years now. Sometimes lazily and sometimes transformatively, he’s reconfigured his favorite plot elements, settings, and autobiographical details into works that will feel comfortingly familiar to some and stale to others. Rainer Werner Fassbinder once remarked that every great director has only one subject, and ultimately makes the same film over and over again. Irving, working primarily as a novelist and sometimes as a screenwriter, seems to have taken this idea literally.

The Last Charlift is about a man who’s born in the mid-20th century to a single mother in New England. He attends an elite boarding school, joins the wrestling team, and grows up to be a writer. Already, you’re sure you’ve heard this one before, and that’s without mentioning that one of the main characters is a transgender woman, or that the story involves the murder of a feminist activist by a male bigot with a rifle, or the protagonist’s stint in a German-speaking country. An Irving loyalist can play “I Spy” throughout all 900 pages of The Last Charlift , but that broad outline above doesn’t begin to capture what makes the novel distinctive.

Typical of an Irving protagonist, Adam Brewster—who narrates the book in the first person—is more of an observer of his unconventional family life than he is an active participant in the story. We’ve seen this get Irving into trouble before, as he tends to write absorbing openings and poignant endings but struggles to hold our attention in the middle stretch. But, to take one example, The Cider House Rules , mired in hundreds of pages of passive “waiting and seeing,” finds Homer Wells making two crucial decisions, the second effectively a reversal of the first. Homer changes by the end of Irving’s heartfelt and morally magnificent masterpiece, and the reader can see it happening over more than a decade of story time.

Adam Brewster, though, seems to take everything in stride, even major revelations about members of his family. There are moments when we learn that he’s been crying, which would otherwise be unapparent from the uninflected prose. It isn’t that Adam is cold or unfeeling; rather, his role, as a stand-in for Irving, is to tell the stories of the people in his life and to chronicle the progress and regression of sexual politics in America over the course of his life. We spend the novel looking outward through his eyes, not exploring the depths of his soul.

But Irving isn’t Anthony Powell and Adam is no Nick Jenkins: The Last Chairlift is less insightful on Irving’s major political subject, sexual intolerance, than it is about the peculiar personalities of all the other major characters. This is where the aforementioned tropes distinguish themselves from their precedents. The details matter. Adam’s mother, called Little Ray, is a free-spirited Bennington College dropout who spends six months of the year as a ski instructor in Vermont, leaving Adam in the care of his grandmother, a lettered woman who reads him Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick , and grandfather, a former Exeter faculty member who became mute upon learning the circumstances of his grandson’s conception. Despite Ray’s absence for half the year, she’s an attentive and loving mother.

There are non-avocational reasons for her time away that come to light in due course, but mystery hangs over much of the novel’s first act, especially concerning Adam’s father. Adam is told that Ray is a “one-event girl,” which he understands to mean at least three things: that she’s strictly a slalom skier; that, like her two older sisters, she has only one child; and that she may in fact have had sex only one time (i.e., when Adam was conceived). Ray herself refers to Adam as her “one and only,” and later on as the love of her life. This is The Last Chairlift ’s central relationship, and it’s so effectively rendered that the reader doesn’t stumble over what would in less gentle hands be uncomfortable intimacies, such as Ray and Adam’s habit of sleeping in the same bed. (Adam’s relationship with his mother is less Oedipal than Proustian.)

As Adam grows up, his older cousin Nora lets him in, piece by piece, on the family lore. Bluntly, she tells Adam that all their family’s problems have to do with sex. And here, the Brewster clan slots into Irving’s accurate but blinkered vision of the United States as a country violently inhospitable to sexual minorities. When Ray marries an English teacher named Elliot Barlow, some members of the family suspect she’s serving as his “beard.” There turns out to be a seed of truth to this, in that Ray is in fact a lesbian and Elliot is a gay man who eventually comes out as a transgender woman. Meanwhile, Ray’s judgmental sisters and puritan father, for Irving, represent not just cultural relics but persistent forces in American society.

The Brewster paterfamilias is imbued with pathos as he declines from dementia, but Adam’s aunts might as well be Cinderella’s evil step sisters. Irving, at this point in his life, has little time for exploring the psychology of intolerance; his focus is squarely on the victims and the survivors. Granted, he misses opportunities for nuance and complexity but stays true to his convictions. We may admire his humanism while at times cringing at his narrator’s unoriginal political broadsides and the author’s own bland, even condescending “love is love” perspective.

Some readers will undoubtedly take issue with Irving rooting his story in a heterosexual character’s experiences, but there’s an element of modesty to this approach that’s worth acknowledging, if not commending. Others may actually be relieved that Irving didn’t attempt to fully inhabit his gay and transgender characters’ lives; though he effectively dials up the pain of watching a loved one die from AIDS, his depiction of New York counterculture during the civil rights era is unconvincing, and thankfully only a small part of The Last Chairlift . Perhaps Irving’s boldest conceit, though, is showing the non-sexual married relationship between Ray and Elliot as nurturing for Adam and fulfilling for each other.

The Last Chairlift ultimately turns out to be about autobiographical fiction as much as an example of it. Some 200 pages are given over to Adam’s unproduced screenplay based on a trip he makes to Aspen, where he was conceived. Much like the second half of 1998’s A Widow for One Year , which transforms a coming-of-age story into a detective yarn, the insertion of a feature-length film script into the novel sounds thrillingly inventive in theory but in practice is rather tedious. Adam isn’t the only autobiographical writer in the novel, but his is the only writing we get to read, and let’s just say it’s difficult to buy, in the absence of any further evidence, that he’s won an Oscar by the end of the story. We just have to take the Academy’s word for it that Adam is as talented a writer as Irving himself.

And Irving, indeed, is one of the most talented novelists of his generation, which is why the protracted longeurs in his work are so frustrating. Few living writers can outdo him at plot construction; the first act of The Last Chairlift is a master class in the gradual accumulation of details and unanswered questions, all of which pay off in a tragically madcap finale. Perhaps it’s simply that childhood is Irving’s best subject, as the early parts of his novels are often the most engaging. But reckoning with the frustration of a John Irving novel, pushing through it to reach the payoff, is, at this point, an inextricable part of the experience of reading him. In that sense, no matter how many shorter books come forth, this shall be the last John Irving novel.

John Irving’s The Last Chairlift is now available from Simon & Schuster.

You might be interested in

5 for the Day: Jeff Bridges

Review: Door in the Floor

Seth Katz's writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books , The Millions , and other publications.

I’m about 20% though the book now, and like all 14 of his prior novels which I loved, I’m loving this one too.

Irving has long been my favorite contemporary author.

whut? no bears?

excellent review, succinct, honest, humourous, and kind whilst still exercising critical analysis.

Overall, I felt an emotional connection to the characters and felt sad at the end. At times the narrative seemed repetitive and tedious (perhaps more typical of a first-person narration), but certainly realistic. The story was, nonetheless, compelling.

I have read all but two of Irving’s novels. I live in Colorado and ski. When I heard that Irving’s latest book was called The Last Chairlift and would be a ghost story taking place partially in Colorado, I was very excited. Now I am excited that I finished this 900 page book so I can read something else. If you like Irving, read it. The Beatles were master songwriters. Some songs better than others. Same with Irving books. I found this book cumbersome, plodding and in need of an editor. That all being said, I look forward to reading those two unread Irving novels.

Excellent review, and spot on. Irving’s moral high ground is claimed through juxtaposition with extremes, not everyday people. But his plot and characters are compelling. The ending was weak; really had to slog through it to get there. Not upset I read it. But because of the extreme politics, it made it tougher.

I love this review and the comments. I’m a long-standing Irving fan however this one is a struggle and I’m looking for inspiration to keep going. The comment about the Beatles clicked. If you are a fan go deep in the catalogue. Sometimes there are treasures that stay with you for a long time. I loved Widow for One Year and never prematurely turn my wheels at a stop light because of it.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Review: K-Ming Chang’s Gods of Want Is Driven by New and Strange Hungers

Cinema Speculation Review: Quentin Tarantino’s Wrenching Blend of Criticism and Memoir

Sign Up for Our Weekly Newsletter

• Bookreporter
• ReadingGroupGuides
• AuthorsOnTheWeb

The Book Report Network

Sign up for our newsletters!

Regular Features

Author spotlights, "bookreporter talks to" videos & podcasts, "bookaccino live: a lively talk about books", favorite monthly lists & picks, seasonal features, book festivals, sports features, bookshelves.

• Coming Soon

Newsletters

• Weekly Update
• On Sale This Week

Fall Reading

• Summer Reading
• Spring Preview
• Winter Reading
• Holiday Cheer

Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the last chairlift.

John Irving is often accused of rewriting his own autobiography in each novel he produces (which is highly unfair considering the well-worn writer’s adage “write what you know”). Sure, his writing is self-referential. He draws from his own experiences, but that’s where it ends.

The reader sees similar themes run throughout Irving’s books --- including sex, gender, love, abandonment, orphaned children, prep schools, independent women, New England, and writing as a career. But like a good movie remake or sequel, these references are Easter eggs, nods to familiarity, to the insider who knows his work. They are like comfortable shoes that one wears everyday…because why would you wear something else?

"For the true Irving devotee, THE LAST CHAIRLIFT...has it all, and then some. For those unfamiliar with Irving, start with an earlier work, and fall in love with his ability to create realistically absurd scenarios and enthrallingly memorable characters."

That’s where Irving excels. He gives us what we, his fans, want from him, but he also takes us down different and unexpected paths each time. He engages the reader right from the start in THE LAST CHAIRLIFT with a likable albeit unconventional narrator, Adam, who is struggling with issues of identity.

Reminiscent of Irving’s most notable character Garp (and yet not), Adam is the only child of Rachel, or Little Ray, as she is known in the family. A one-time Olympic hopeful, Rachel is a seasonal ski instructor who disappears for months at a time, leaving Adam to be raised by his extended family of eccentric individuals (like a grandfather who appears as a ghost later, dressed solely in a diaper). There is an assemblage of characters --- gay, straight, trans, mute, moaning, dead, ghostly, short, wrestling, skiing --- but at the heart of the book is a child-man searching for answers he may never get.

Irving is not a clichéd writer. His scenes are often surprisingly delightful in their departure from expectation, which I have always loved about his work. You don’t see what’s coming, despite how visual his writing is. When it lands, you can’t help but be transfixed by both the stellar landing and the sheer uniqueness of it. A few examples include the transition of Rachel’s husband of convenience to a woman, Adam’s escorting of two corpses down a mountain slope on the titular chairlift, a girlfriend’s bowel evacuation in bed --- all astonishing scenes that result in the shake of a reader’s head and a tandem smile. The book is rife with these vignettes, as is any Irving novel. These are quirky characters living life to its quirkiest.

An Irving book would not be complete without commentary on the larger issues of life and the world. Acceptance is at the heart of this novel, whether familial, societal, sexual or political. Irving touches on it all in this 900-plus-page volume. “There is more than one way to love people,” says one pivotal character, a line that speaks to the core of the story, if not all of Irving’s oeuvre. At base, Adam, a struggling screenwriter, is witnessing and discovering love in all its permutations.

For the true Irving devotee, THE LAST CHAIRLIFT (which he has stated will be his last novel) has it all, and then some. For those unfamiliar with Irving, start with an earlier work, and fall in love with his ability to create realistically absurd scenarios and enthrallingly memorable characters. You will appreciate this voluminous book more if you are familiar with and have grown to adore what Irving is inviting you to experience.

Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara on October 21, 2022

The Last Chairlift by John Irving

• Publication Date: October 3, 2023
• Genres: Fiction
• Paperback: 912 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• ISBN-10: 150118928X
• ISBN-13: 9781501189289

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election results
• Google trends
• AP & Elections
• U.S. Open Tennis
• Paralympic Games
• College football
• Auto Racing
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Review: John Irving writes long tale ‘The Last Chairlift’

This cover image released by Simon & Schuste shows “The Last Chairlift” by John Irving. (Simon & Schuste via AP)

• Copy Link copied

“The Last Chairlift” by John Irving (Simon & Schuster)

After 54 years and 15 novels, John Irving’s finally done it. He’s written a book longer than most editions of “Moby-Dick.” And by the time you’re done reading it, you’ll chuckle every time you see the hyphen in Melville’s title.

It’s difficult to do justice to this book in a short review. Every Irving fan will read it and even readers trying Irving for the first time will find it an accessible introduction to the New England-born novelist whose work has always been stuffed with serious themes like religion, sex and politics, tempered by a fair dose of satire and absurdity, delivered by narrators in an endearing, matter-of-fact prose.

At its heart “The Last Chairlift” is a love story, telling almost the entire life story of its narrator, Adam Brewster, himself a writer growing up in Exeter, New Hampshire, who wrestles, becomes a bestselling novelist, wins an Oscar and earns Canadian citizenship, not unlike Mr. Irving himself. But as narrator Adam admits: “Real life is so sloppy — it’s full of coincidences. Things just happen, random things that have no connection to one another. In good fiction, isn’t everything connected to everything else?” In “The Last Chairlift,” Irving tries to do both — tell a fictional story that is chock full of random events, but make it feel like nothing is random at all in hindsight, as Adam relates it all to us.

At the beginning of the book, Adam doesn’t know who his biological father is. His mother falls in love with an English teacher at Exeter Academy, whom Adam admires for his diminutive stature and his distaste for downhill skiing. Henceforth the man, whose full name is Elliot Barlow, is referred to mostly as “the snowshoer.” (Adam’s mom, called Little Ray, is also very small. She’s a ski instructor, always doing lunges and wall sits around the house and decamping for the winter months to live in Manchester, New Hampshire, closer to the ski mountain that pays the bills.)

Without spoiling too much, it turns out that Ray isn’t really into men anymore, if she ever was, and while “the snowshoer” is a constant companion for the rest of her days and a father figure to Adam, it’s a ski patroller named Molly who captures Little Ray’s heart.

True to form for an Irving novel, sex is a frequent topic of discussion and driver of the plot. There’s an unusual frankness among Adam’s extended family about his formative sexual experiences, which are recounted in great detail and recalled at various stages of his life. There’s also an orgasm that even “the white whale wouldn’t have survived” overheard by guests at Little Ray’s wedding to the snowshoer, and while the narrative tracks Adam’s life, chronologically, it lingers during sexually charged political moments in history — from Roe v. Wade to President Reagan ignoring the AIDS crisis to the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church.

Oh, and don’t forget the ghosts! The novel begins and ends with a reference to them and they play all sorts of roles in between. A real-life establishment in Aspen, Colorado, called The Hotel Jerome is haunted by various important figures in Adam’s life, many of which he features in a pair of screenplays he writes that are included in the novel, but which are based on his real life. Screenplay line spacing helps the 889 pages turn faster. It’s not that you want “The Last Chairlift” to end, exactly, but you do want to see where all the characters end up off after that final ride up the mountain.

• Sign up and get a free ebook!
• Don't miss our ebook deals!

Free shipping when you spend $40. Terms apply.

The Last Chairlift

• Unabridged Audio Download
• Unabridged Compact Disk

Trade Paperback

LIST PRICE $24.99

Buy from Other Retailers

• Amazon logo
• Bookshop logo

Table of Contents

About the book, about the author.

John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears , was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. He is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 1980, Mr. Irving won a National Book Award for his novel The World According to Garp . In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules . In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person . Internationally renowned, his novels have been translated into almost forty languages. His all-time bestselling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany . A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto.

Product Details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 3, 2023)
• Length: 912 pages
• ISBN13: 9781501189289

Browse Related Books

• Fiction > Political
• Fiction > Literary
• Fiction > General

Related Articles

• New in Paperback: 10 October Releases That’ll Make Your Month - Off the Shelf
• 6 Dickensian Novels Worthy of Your Great Expectations - Off the Shelf
• 6 Quality Books That Were Years in the Making - Off the Shelf
• 11 Authors We Can Always Count On - Off the Shelf
• The 10 Most Popular Books of August - Off the Shelf
• Our 18 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2022 - Off the Shelf
• 5 Award-Winning Authors with New Books on the Way - Off the Shelf

Resources and Downloads

High resolution images.

• Book Cover Image (jpg): The Last Chairlift Trade Paperback 9781501189289

Get a FREE ebook by joining our mailing list today!

Plus, receive recommendations and exclusive offers on all of your favorite books and authors from Simon & Schuster.

More books from this author: John Irving

You may also like: Thriller and Mystery Staff Picks

More to Explore

Limited Time eBook Deals

Check out this month's discounted reads.

Our Summer Reading Recommendations

Red-hot romances, poolside fiction, and blockbuster picks, oh my! Start reading the hottest books of the summer.

This Month's New Releases

From heart-pounding thrillers to poignant memoirs and everything in between, check out what's new this month.

Tell us what you like and we'll recommend books you'll love.

John Irving, who warned you about Roe vs. Wade, hopes to die at his desk

• Copy Link URL Copied!

On the Shelf

The Last Chairlift

By John Irving Simon & Schuster: 912 pages, $38 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

When I was 20, I went to Amsterdam and got entirely too high. Bumbling around a hostel lobby I picked up, almost at random, a paperback copy of John Irving’s 1998 novel “ A Widow for One Year. ” Later, I’d learn it was classic Irving, which can encompass any or all of the following: characters who wrestle or write or grow up in Exeter, N.H., or sleep with an older woman; Central Europe; complicated relationships among nontraditional families; sentiment; heartbreak; bears. Within a hundred pages, I was weeping, snapped out of my fog. All of which is to say: Maybe there are more incisively modern books, but if you want a genuinely mood-altering cry, try John Irving.

At 80, Irving is publishing his 15th novel, “ The Last Chairlift ,” a multigenerational family epic full of his old tricks. On a video call from his home in Toronto, he sits in front of a wall of framed photos, along with his Oscar. Irving won it for his 1999 adaptation of his novel “ The Cider House Rules ,” a book newly relevant for its painstakingly realistic depictions of abortions conducted in pre-Roe Maine. In a 2019 New York Times op-ed , Irving wrote that, when it was published in 1985, he’d had to tell complacent readers it wasn’t historical fiction: “‘If you think Roe v. Wade is safe, you’re one of the reasons it isn’t.’”

Irving wears a flannel shirt, its sleeves rolled up, and glasses. His white hair is brushed back. He speaks with his hands and with a slight cough — a product, he explains, of just having gotten over COVID. “Everyone was very afraid of my getting it because I’m 80 and I have asthma,” he says happily, in his matter-of-fact way, “and it turned out to be not much of a big deal.” Our interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Jacket Copy

John Irving, poolside in 1998

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links.

Oct. 25, 2009

The publisher’s note on “The Last Chairlift” galley says this will be your last “long” novel. Does that mean you have your next few novels already planned?

For some time now, I’ve thought of my unwritten novels as boxcars in a train station not yet coupled to an engine. And for the last three or four novels I’ve been trying to take the longest or most difficult looking train first, so that eventually the easier looking trains are the ones that are left.

Are you confident you’ll stick to the plan?

That’s a very civilized way to ask, “Are you kidding?” Yeah, I know. Why should anyone believe me? I’m not promising that I’m going to mutate before your eyes and become a novella man. But I can count the boxcars and I can count the number of major characters. I’m six chapters into the new novel.

Did you take any time off after finishing “The Last Chairlift”?

I don’t take time off. I used to. But from the moment I started writing screenplays I really had no in-between time. [By the way] I decided that in the time remaining, I’m going to write novels. I like writing screenplays. I’m glad somebody taught me how to do it. It has, I think, taught me a lot about writing novels. I don’t have an ax to grind with the way the movie business works. But in the time I’ve got left, I’d rather be writing novels.

Is there any way getting older has made you a stronger writer?

I’m familiar with what I do best as a writer, more familiar than I used to be. I hope there’s a lot of evident playfulness or mischief or fun in “The Last Chairlift.” It’s another novel that isn’t a happy ending, granted, but I had a lot of fun with it. The family circumstance is surely recognizable to many of my readers. There’s an elusive, evasive, mysterious mother. There’s the missing biological father. But from that premise I like to write a very different story each time. And I’m more — at least I feel I’m more — relaxed telling a story. So somehow, even within the long form, even at my age — something about it is getting easier.

I feel very lucky. I’m not feeling, at what I do, my age. I feel it in other ways. I feel it in how much more sleep I need. I’m aware of cutting back on what I used to do as a daily workout. I feel it physically.

What does your workout look like these days?

After the third knee surgery, I can’t run anymore, but I can crank up a treadmill and go uphill for a long time. I can walk three or four miles a day. I can ride a stationary bike and I’m lifting lighter weights than I used to — lighter weights, more reps.

30 books we can’t wait for this fall

The latest from Ling Ma, Yiyun Li, Russell Banks and Namwali Serpell as well as exciting newcomers round out our critics’ most anticipated fall books.

Aug. 30, 2022

Has your relationship to your critics changed over the years?

I don’t know that I necessarily believe my fellow writers who say they don’t read their reviews, or they don’t read their bad ones. I reread the bad ones. For more reason than imaginary vengeance. Because you ought to know — you ought to listen to what it is you do that irritates some people. But in many cases I know that what irritates some people is what pleases others. When I lived in New York, every once in a while I had the good fortune to run into one of my bad reviewers at a party. And I’ve always found it interesting that whenever that happens, they’re the ones who run out of the room.

You’ve written your longest novel at 80.

This novel is longer than “Bleak House.” This novel is long . It probably would have been more fashionable if I’d written my longest novel several novels ago. I’m sure the sheer size of this thing is going to turn some people away. They’re just going to look at it and say, “Oh, God, I can’t do that.” [Shrug] I understand.

I’ve been thinking about “The Cider House Rules.” In light of Roe being overturned, it feels like a very different book.

[Long sigh] I didn’t write “The Cider House Rules” to be quaint or historical. I wrote it as a warning. I said, “This is what that period of time was like. When abortion was unsafe and illegal. This is what people were doing. Do you really want to go back to that time?” Everything in the novel happens only because the choice to have a child or an abortion is denied the woman.

Few Americans know their own abortion history. For more than two centuries of American history, abortion was allowed. Going back to the separatist Pilgrims landing in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 and 1621 — abortion was legal. It’s been banned for less than a century. We’ve come a long way to go backward.

You can’t look at what the Supreme Court did and not recognize that their overturning Roe is more in step with the Vatican than it is with the 1st Amendment. That part that says “make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — they endorsed a papal definition of right to life. From the moment of conception. It’s staggering, really. To declare that an undeveloped fetus has more rights than a fully grown and fully developed woman. Really? It’s an unthinkable backwardness.

Entertainment & Arts

‘Last Night in Twisted River’ by John Irving

Irving doubles back in this novel, going over ground he traveled before in his earlier writings, and yet the story is fresh and excellent.

Sept. 16, 2014

You didn’t have a big commercial success until your fourth novel, 1978’s “ The World According to Garp .” Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if “Garp” hadn’t broken out?

Well, I had the writing of four books to know perfectly well how I would be living. I didn’t dislike teaching English and writing. The good teachers and the good coaches in my life were the most important people in it. I took the role of being a teacher and a coach to heart. I wasn’t unhappy in that life. I just was frustrated that I could only find the time to write for two hours a day and not every day. So what would my life have been like? I would have written only half as many books.

You haven’t lost any of your appetite for doing the work.

I want to die with my head on my desk in the middle of a sentence. I can’t think of a better way to exit.

Barshad is a writer in New York and the author of “No One Man Should Have All That Power: How Rasputins Manipulate The World.”

Sign up for our Book Club newsletter

Get the latest news, events and more from the Los Angeles Times Book Club, and help us get L.A. reading and talking.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Hollywood Inc.

‘Get to know your enemy.’ How Hollywood workers are learning to use AI

Sept. 2, 2024

California’s legal weed system is broken, while Michigan’s is thriving. What gives?

Aug. 30, 2024

Superheroes came to Hollywood’s rescue this summer. Is it enough to save movies?

Aug. 29, 2024

UC Berkeley’s new chancellor plans to ‘question the status quo’ as he takes over

Aug. 28, 2024

• Literature & Fiction
• Genre Fiction

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

The Last Chairlift Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 18, 2022

• Print length 912 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Simon & Schuster
• Publication date October 18, 2022
• Dimensions 6.25 x 1.7 x 9.25 inches
• ISBN-10 1501189271
• ISBN-13 978-1501189272
• See all details

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; First Edition (October 18, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 912 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1501189271
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1501189272
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.8 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.7 x 9.25 inches
• #393 in Political Fiction (Books)
• #2,602 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
• #8,254 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Videos for this product

Click to play video

John Irving on His Writing Process

Simon & Schuster

About the author

John irving.

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times-winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award, in 1981, for the short story "Interior Space." In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules-a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

For more information about the author, please visit www.john-irving.com

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 46% 23% 16% 7% 8% 46%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 46% 23% 16% 7% 8% 23%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 46% 23% 16% 7% 8% 16%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 46% 23% 16% 7% 8% 7%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 46% 23% 16% 7% 8% 8%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the storyline great and ridiculously unlikely. They also appreciate the craftsmanship and storytelling style as unique and unsurpassed. However, some find the narrative boring, repetitive, and goes nowhere. They describe the book as way too long and an absolute slog to get through. Readers also mention the plot bizarre and unnatural. Opinions are mixed on the writing style, with some finding it wonderful and engaging, while others find it confusing and repetitive. Reader opinions are mixed also on the characters, with those finding them great and loveable, while other find them unlikable and disappointing.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the storyline compelling, with wildly unrealistic events and loveable characters. They also mention that the book has a quirky extended family and ghosts.

"...If you're a fan, you be happy that Irving again delivers a sweeping storyline , a large cast of quirky characters and a compelling narrative...." Read more

"...This is a unique story told in a unique way and it is memorable , but I would be disinclined to read it again." Read more

"...In the end, I'm glad I stuck with it. It was a compelling love story involving a quirky extended family and ghosts...." Read more

"...It has the wildly unrealistic events with just enough detail to believe. It has the book-within-a-book bonus. You can almost see the movie of it...." Read more

Customers find the book well developed, and appreciate the condition and price. They also say the book is a colossal achievement and a lesson in stamina and perseverance.

"...Why is this? Well-- craftsmanship --and depth --to name 2 qualities Irving has that the mega-star and mega-quantity authors lack...." Read more

"...Otherwise, it was entertaining, endearing, and earnest ." Read more

"...What a colossal achievement ! A cast of characters that you get to know, you can’t leave them without their telling you their story...." Read more

"...too far off to be enjoyable - the characters are interesting and well developed and the story line follows - but much of the detail is overdone and..." Read more

Customers find the storytelling style unique and unsurpassed as an original thinker. They also appreciate the intricately constructed situations, great sense of humor, and clever device. Readers also mention that the book is pure John Irving.

"...Chairlift is Irving at his best, memorable characters, intricately constructed situations , great sense of humor...." Read more

"...It's a clever device and it made me think about how much or how little the feeling of inevitability has led up to significant events in my own..." Read more

"...The joys & challenges are wisely cataloged in wonderful fictional form ...." Read more

"...I like how his characters are fit and active and athletic and smart and accomplished, even when very old. Go, old people!" Read more

Customers are mixed about the writing style. Some find it well written, witty, and poetic. They say the author captures your spirit and takes you for a long, bumpy ride. However, others say the grammar is poor and the detail is overdone. They also mention that the narrator is awful and it's like being read to by Hal.

"...an incredibly imaginative novelist with a lot to say, a unique voice in the literary world ." Read more

"...Many of the greatest novels are NOT easy to read . "Moby Dick"? Dostoevsky? Shakespeare? "War and Peace"? and now--"The Last Chairlift."..." Read more

"...my understanding, made me think beyond the story itself and touched my heart ." Read more

"...but disruptive to the narrative of the story; burdened with excessive details about ski trails , lifts, garments, weather etc..." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the characters in the book. Some find them great, while others say they're not likeable.

"...Chairlift is Irving at his best, memorable characters , intricately constructed situations, great sense of humor...." Read more

"...; little humanity in any of the characters , although a half-hearted attempt is made to give them..." Read more

"...happy that Irving again delivers a sweeping storyline, a large cast of quirky characters and a compelling narrative...." Read more

Customers find the narrative boring, repetitive, and frustrating to read. They say the story doesn't go anywhere and is too long with unnecessary fluff. Readers also mention that the characters become redundant and boring.

"...It's also Irving at his worst, repetitive , overuse of quirky nicknames...." Read more

"...relationship between the two main characters and, again, felt the story was incomplete with the way the end just faded out instead of going more..." Read more

"...doubt even the most progress- minded liberal could like; the nonsense of a screen play (hundreds of pages) inserted here and there which is not only..." Read more

"This book was far too long and repetitive and wordy. If you are big on skiing, you might find it interesting...." Read more

Customers find the book too long, bloated, and tedious. They also mention that the story has become repetitive and drags to read.

"...As several have pointed out it is way too long - a good editor would have removed at least 400 pages; repetitive beyond reason; characters that I..." Read more

"I liked this book, even though it was waaaay over-long . At the half way point, I nearly gave up on it...." Read more

"...It is at least 200 pages (that is not a typo) too long and badly needed editing for length , his incessant repetition, and poor grammar that is not..." Read more

Customers find the plot bizarre, creepy, and strange. They also say the unnatural focus on sex and ghosts, along with a couple of screenplays, makes the ghost stories seem like an add-on.

"...The unnatural focus on sex and ghosts , along with a couple of screenplays thrown in, just didn’t do anything for me...." Read more

"...The ghost stories seemed like an add on , not an integral part of the narrative...." Read more

"...one (I am only halfway through and doubt I will finish it) is bizarre to say the least . Some parts are truly funny and the writing is good...." Read more

" Too Weird , Too many meaningless threads, Too much self indulgent rambling, Too much of the boring screen play, Too many pages, But not a single..." Read more

Reviews with images

A Captivating Epic Tale

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

May 1, 1998 BOOKS OF THE TIMES / By MICHIKO KAKUTANI 'A Widow for One Year': Randomness and Luck, but Whew, No Bears Related Articles John Irving: A Novelist Builds Out From Fact to Reach the Truth (April 28, 1998) John Irving: Reviews, Profiles and RealAudio The New York Times on the Web: Books Forum Join a Discussion on Books A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR By John Irving 537 pages. Random House. $27.95. he good news about John Irving's new novel "A Widow for One Year" is that it not only lacks those annoyingly winsome bears that have popped up so frequently in his earlier fiction, but that the lack of bears is also indicative of a new maturity in Irving's work, a taming of his exclamatory style and adolescent malice. Less manipulative than "The Hotel New Hampshire," less pretentious than "The Cider House Rules," "A Widow for One Year" is Irving's most entertaining and persuasive novel since his 1978 best seller, "The World According to Garp." In fact, "Widow" and "Garp" turn out to have quite a bit in common. Both novels pivot around a horrifying car accident involving two boys. Both novels probe the ways in which writers process reality. And both novels examine the roles that randomness and fate, luck and destiny, play in our everyday lives. The difference is that "Garp" reads like a dark parable about an America reeling from the dislocations of the '60s and '70s, while "Widow" reads more like a sentimental, if darkly hued, love story -- a story that tends to look inward at the emotional landscape of its heroine's psyche, rather than outward at the world around her. Like most Irving works, "A Widow for One Year" is a sprawling 19th-century production, chock full of bizarre coincidences, multiple plot lines, lengthy digressions and stories within stories. It has a self-assured, omniscient narrator who's perfectly happy to foreshadow the future and annotate events, and it has an antic cast of supporting characters who frequently verge on caricature. Its heroine, Ruth Cole, however, emerges as a complex, conflicted woman -- despite her almost cartoonish family history, she is Irving's most emotionally detailed character yet. Even in Irving's fictional world of eccentrics, freaks and oddballs, the Cole clan stands out as a paradigm of dysfunction. Ruth's parents, Ted and Marion Cole, have never recovered from the death of her two older brothers, Thomas and Timothy, who were killed in a car accident many years ago. Their house is a virtual shrine to the two lost boys, its walls covered with photographs memorializing their vanished youth. Ruth is later told that she was conceived in a vain attempt to replace the two beloved boys. Ted has become an inveterate womanizer and drunk; he has seduced scores of women, including Ruth's best friend. Marion, fearful of loving and losing another child, keeps her distance from Ruth; she soon begins a passionate affair with Eddie, her husband's 16-year-old assistant, who looks uncannily like her dead sons. One day, when Ruth is 4, Marion picks up and leaves the family for good; she will vanish for 37 years. Given this calamitous family history, it's not surprising that Ruth has trouble making connections. She has had a series of bad boyfriends, and is ambivalent about marriage and children. She knows she should marry her editor, Allan, a thoroughly responsible, caring man, but somehow she can't commit. Her career as a novelist is in decidedly better shape than her private life: She has achieved both international acclaim and commercial success as the author of novels that bear a marked resemblance to Irving's own books. JOHN IRVING Credit: Cook Neilson/Random House Indeed, critics of Ruth's work voice the same sort of complaints that have been leveled at Irving over the years: that she tends to "exaggerate the unseemly," that she gathers "innumerable moral calamities of our time into the life of a single character," that her novels are "too unlikely" and "too unrealistic." In response to the argument that "not everything in our lives is comic material," that "there are certain tragedies that resist a humorous interpretation," Ruth replies: "A writer doesn't choose to be comic. You can choose a plot, or not to have one. You can choose your characters. But comedy is not a choice; it just comes out that way." Oddly enough, nearly everyone in Ruth's family -- and nearly everyone Ruth meets -- is also a writer. Her father writes children's stories that rework the tragedy of his lost sons into scary animal tales. Her mother writes detective stories that revolve around missing-persons cases. And her mother's former lover, Eddie, writes mediocre romans a clef about his love for older women. Even subsidiary characters in "Widow" turn out to be storytellers too: A prostitute whom Ruth interviews for one of her novels is an accomplished liar; a hockey player who has dated one of Ruth's friends writes a confessional book about his love life. No doubt this profusion of writers has something to do with the fact that the man Ruth eventually falls in love with is not a writer at all, but an ardent reader. As he has done in earlier books like "Garp," Irving is using all this talk about writing and writers to make some points about the ordering impulses of art and the imaginative transactions made by artists in grappling with the real world. We tell stories, he suggests, to come to terms with the chaos around us -- to subdue it, to make sense of it or simply to give it a local habitation and name. Though "Widow" is marred by some paint-by-number psychologizing and the heavy-handed use of coincidence, Irving's own storytelling has never been better. In fact, his authoritative narrative steamrolls over the contrivances, implausibilities and antic excesses of his story to create an engaging and often affecting fable, a fairy tale that manages to be old-fashioned and modern all at once. Return to the Books Home Page

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY

by John Irving ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 30, 1989

Irving's novels, which often begin in autobiographical commonplace, get transformed along the way: sometimes into fairy tale (The Hotel New Hampshire), sometimes into modern-day ironic fable (The World According to Garp). This one—set in New Hampshire in the 50's and 60's—is a little of both, but not enough of either: its tone is finally too self-righteous to be fully convincing as fiction. In 1953, Owen Meany—a physically tiny man with a big voice who believes he's God's instrument—kills his best friend's mother with a foul ball. His best friend, Johnny Wheelwright, is the book's narrator: from Toronto, where he has lived for some 20 odd years, he tells the story of Owen Meany, who has a voice that "comes from God," of his own "Father Hunt"—Wheelwright is the product of his mother's "little fling"—and of growing up in the Sixties, when some people believed in destiny, others in coincidence. Sweetly moralistic, Wheelwright, who became "a Christian because of Owen Meany," sometimes launches into tirades about Reagan and the Iran/contra fiasco, but mostly he tells Owen's story: Meany, who always writes and speaks in the uppercase, is the real mouthpiece here, though Wheelwright is his Nick Carraway. Meany, after hitting "that fated baseball," no longer believes in accidents: his parents, in the granite business, convince him that he's the product of a virgin birth (we learn late in the book). His sense of destiny serves him well: not only does he play the Christ child in a Christmas pageant and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but his pontificating "Voice" becomes a great power at the prep school he attends with Johnny (there are some marvelous sendups of prep school), and he "sees" the circumstances and the date of his own death. After much inventive detail (as well as much slapstick and whimsy dealing with Meany's tiny size and strange voice) and the working-out of a three-way relationship involving Meany, Johnny, and his cousin Hester, Meany saws off Johnny's finger in order to keep him out of Vietnam, dies as he foresaw, and reveals to Johnny from beyond the grave that the local Congregationalist minister is his real father. Vintage Irving—though here Dickensian coincidence, an Irving staple, becomes the subject of the book rather than a technique. The result is a novel that seems sincere but turns too bombastic and insistent in its opinions about literature, religion, and politics.

Pub Date: March 30, 1989

ISBN: 0679642595

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1989

GENERAL FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

More by John Irving

BOOK REVIEW

by John Irving

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2015

Kirkus Prize winner

National Book Award Finalist

A LITTLE LIFE

by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

More by Hanya Yanagihara

by Hanya Yanagihara

More About This Book

PERSPECTIVES

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen ) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

More by J.D. Salinger

by J.D. Salinger

SEEN & HEARD

APPRECIATIONS

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.