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In One Person
His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany , John Irving's In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love--tormented, funny and affecting--and an intimate, unforgettable portrait of the novel's bisexual narrator and main character, Billy Abbott.
In One Person is a glorious ode to sexual difference, a poignant story of a life that no reader will be able to forget, a book that no one else could have written. Utterly contemporary and topical in its themes, In One Person grapples with the mysteries of identity and the multiple tragedies of the AIDS epidemic, and with everything that has changed in our sexual life over the last 50 years and everything that still needs to. It's also one of Irving's most sincere and human novels, a book imbued on every page with a spirit of openness that expands and challenges the reader's world.
In One Person is a glorious ode to sexual difference, a poignant story of a life that no reader will be able to forget, a book that no one else could have written. Utterly contemporary and topical in its themes, In One Person grapples with the mysteries of identity and the multiple tragedies of the AIDS epidemic, and with everything that has changed in our sexual life over the last 50 years and everything that still needs to. It's also one of Irving's most sincere and human novels, a book imbued on every page with a spirit of openness that expands and challenges the reader's world.
448 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2012
1488 people are currently reading
20636 people want to read
About the author
John Irving
178 books16.1k followersJOHN 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.
Mr. Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for his novel The World According to Garp. He received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for his short story “Interior Space.” In 2000, Mr. Irving 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.
An international writer—his novels have been translated into more than thirty-five languages—John Irving lives in Toronto. His all-time best-selling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Avenue of Mysteries is his fourteenth novel.
Mr. Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for his novel The World According to Garp. He received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for his short story “Interior Space.” In 2000, Mr. Irving 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.
An international writer—his novels have been translated into more than thirty-five languages—John Irving lives in Toronto. His all-time best-selling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Avenue of Mysteries is his fourteenth novel.
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September 12, 2024
There is a scene near the end of John Irving’s 2012 novel, In One Person, in which a character who is a writer is confronted:
John Irving - image from his FB photos
William Abbot, in his late sixties, recalls his life, from his prep school days in the small town of First Sister, Vermont to his present, in the 21st century. Billy is bisexual and knows from an early age that he is attracted to both males and females. He struggles to find his place in the world, knowing that he differs from the usual in a significant way. Irving shows us his journey, his loves, triumphs, disappointments, what he discovers, what he seeks out, the discovery of self and of the world that is the core of any life journey worth telling.
In the same way that Cabot Cove of Murder, She Wrote fame zoomed way above the statistical norm as a rather dodgy place in which to hold onto one's corporal existence, Little Sister, Vermont seems a statistically anomalous bastion of sexual diversity. William has a grandfather who cross dresses, genetic contributions from a gay relation, a cousin who is a lesbian, a best friend who is also bi, a classmate who walks on both sides of the street, another classmate who is gay, and a notable person in town who is transgender. Relying on that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia, we learn that as of April 2011, approximately 3.5% of American adults identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, while 0.3% are transgender. Of course, the number who are in fact LGB or T is probably higher, as there remain plenty of closets filled with members of those groups not yet able to identify themselves as such. Even so, and considering that the period in question is mostly early 1960s, you might want to check under First Sister's slip to see if maybe she might really be First Brother. Maybe there’s something in the water there, washing down from grandpa’s lumber mill. (This must summon to mind Monty Python’s amazingly relevant Lumberjack Song) In fact, there is so much non-standard sexuality in First Sister, Vt, that one might expect the sport Irving focuses on to shift from his favorite, wrestling, to something like cross-country, or mixed doubles.
William’s tale is primarily that of his mid-to-late adolescence, his emergence as a bisexual, and coping with the complications and personal growth that result. In particular he copes with the ongoing problem of having crushes on the “wrong people.” I felt that this was the strongest part of the book. Enough time is dedicated to these early years to give us the richest texture, the deepest appreciation. This is not to say that William’s years beyond are thin, well, ok maybe a bit thin as he squeezes too many years into too few pages, but if his story were a Hershey kiss, the prep school years would be the lower two thirds.
For all that this is about William’s coming of age, he seemed pretty well formed by the time he appears as a young adolescent. He knew what he was, bisexual, and did not seem to suffer much real conflict about it. One might expect that he would feel two ways about it, but he didn’t, even though he grows into a more robust acceptance as he grows.
One mechanism Irving used to bolster his characterizations was to give William a speech problem that was probably tongue in cheek. William had great difficulty pronouncing words that related to problem areas in his life. “Penis,” for example, comes out “penith,” with the plural presenting an acute challenge. Later, another character is shown to have the same malady. This felt forced to me, a bit too cute.
Literature and theater permeate the story. The young William is led to the reading life by the town librarian, the alluring Miss Frost, and this opens the door for Irving to connect his characters to tales from great literature. There are two stage venues in First Sister, the school and the town both put on productions. This offers many opportunities for Irving to tell us about his characters by the roles they are assigned in the many plays, usually Shakespeare or Ibsen. Sadly, no musicals.
One strength, for me, was the presentation of a host of believable supporting characters. A cross-dressing grandparent was a charming, and supportive soul. William’s bff, Elaine, worked well. There are transgender characters portrayed as pillars of strength, very effectively. Also there are heterosexual characters who glow as supportive, caring sorts, William’s stepfather, Elaine’s mother, who offers counseling at the school, and even a gruff-seeming wrestling coach. And a scan of the history of public attitudes about acceptance of orientation diversity adds heft.
We see a variety of external pressures put on non-heterosexual people, but William does not really seem all that damaged by the prejudices as a teen, although he is victimized by baseless fears as an adult. Others, however are damaged. A good and supportive person loses a job as a result. Later, the AIDS epidemic takes many. Having to keep secrets does a fair bit of harm as well.
There was one particular scene that affected me oddly, made me anxious. I am not sure what to make of it. The scene in which an adult William returns from his home in Manhattan to Vermont for a funeral was particularly discomfiting. I have no particular affection for my “home town” and the thought of being dragged back there, even for a good cause, gives me a fear of being somehow pinned there forever. I feel that I escaped once, and might not if trapped again. Maybe like a djinn consigned again to a lamp from which he had been liberated. I am not sure why I reacted that way to William returning home. Maybe a part of this was the bitter taste of watching the residents of First Sister, Vermont being picked off by the author one by one. It seemed something other than sad. It seemed almost dismissive. As if a list of characters had been posted in the left column, living, and were being systematically dragged into the right hand column, deceased. The passings certainly make sense in the context of the story, but something that I obviously cannot adequately describe bugged me about it. I am not at all citing this as a flaw, just something I wish I could explain, but cannot.
I suppose I could go to the well one more time and say that I am ambivalent about In One Person, but I am not. What Irving did for the delicate subject of abortion in Cider House Rules, he does for sexual diversity here, humanizing a difficult subject, making us see the humanity of those too-often considered outsiders. Irving has written a moving story with believable characters, people we can care about and shows without telling.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Irving's personal and FB pages
…I’ve read all your books and I know what you do—I mean, in your writing. You make all these sexual extremes seem normal—that is what you do. Like Gee, that girl, or whatever she is—or what she’s becoming. You create these characters who are so sexually ‘different,’ as you might call them—or ‘fucked up,’ which is what I would call them—and then you expect us to sympathize with them, or feel sorry for them, or something.And that is exactly what Irving does here. Irving maintains his fixation on sexuality in this one, and wrestling and New England prep schools, and May-December romance. So, if he is jogging for the umpteenth time down the same well-worn path, what is it that makes this one any different? The story is not one of a May-December entanglement, although that element is here. The book is about sexuality in a larger social, historical context.
“Yes, that is more or less what I do,” I told him. (p 424)
John Irving - image from his FB photos
William Abbot, in his late sixties, recalls his life, from his prep school days in the small town of First Sister, Vermont to his present, in the 21st century. Billy is bisexual and knows from an early age that he is attracted to both males and females. He struggles to find his place in the world, knowing that he differs from the usual in a significant way. Irving shows us his journey, his loves, triumphs, disappointments, what he discovers, what he seeks out, the discovery of self and of the world that is the core of any life journey worth telling.
In the same way that Cabot Cove of Murder, She Wrote fame zoomed way above the statistical norm as a rather dodgy place in which to hold onto one's corporal existence, Little Sister, Vermont seems a statistically anomalous bastion of sexual diversity. William has a grandfather who cross dresses, genetic contributions from a gay relation, a cousin who is a lesbian, a best friend who is also bi, a classmate who walks on both sides of the street, another classmate who is gay, and a notable person in town who is transgender. Relying on that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia, we learn that as of April 2011, approximately 3.5% of American adults identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, while 0.3% are transgender. Of course, the number who are in fact LGB or T is probably higher, as there remain plenty of closets filled with members of those groups not yet able to identify themselves as such. Even so, and considering that the period in question is mostly early 1960s, you might want to check under First Sister's slip to see if maybe she might really be First Brother. Maybe there’s something in the water there, washing down from grandpa’s lumber mill. (This must summon to mind Monty Python’s amazingly relevant Lumberjack Song) In fact, there is so much non-standard sexuality in First Sister, Vt, that one might expect the sport Irving focuses on to shift from his favorite, wrestling, to something like cross-country, or mixed doubles.
William’s tale is primarily that of his mid-to-late adolescence, his emergence as a bisexual, and coping with the complications and personal growth that result. In particular he copes with the ongoing problem of having crushes on the “wrong people.” I felt that this was the strongest part of the book. Enough time is dedicated to these early years to give us the richest texture, the deepest appreciation. This is not to say that William’s years beyond are thin, well, ok maybe a bit thin as he squeezes too many years into too few pages, but if his story were a Hershey kiss, the prep school years would be the lower two thirds.
For all that this is about William’s coming of age, he seemed pretty well formed by the time he appears as a young adolescent. He knew what he was, bisexual, and did not seem to suffer much real conflict about it. One might expect that he would feel two ways about it, but he didn’t, even though he grows into a more robust acceptance as he grows.
One mechanism Irving used to bolster his characterizations was to give William a speech problem that was probably tongue in cheek. William had great difficulty pronouncing words that related to problem areas in his life. “Penis,” for example, comes out “penith,” with the plural presenting an acute challenge. Later, another character is shown to have the same malady. This felt forced to me, a bit too cute.
Literature and theater permeate the story. The young William is led to the reading life by the town librarian, the alluring Miss Frost, and this opens the door for Irving to connect his characters to tales from great literature. There are two stage venues in First Sister, the school and the town both put on productions. This offers many opportunities for Irving to tell us about his characters by the roles they are assigned in the many plays, usually Shakespeare or Ibsen. Sadly, no musicals.
One strength, for me, was the presentation of a host of believable supporting characters. A cross-dressing grandparent was a charming, and supportive soul. William’s bff, Elaine, worked well. There are transgender characters portrayed as pillars of strength, very effectively. Also there are heterosexual characters who glow as supportive, caring sorts, William’s stepfather, Elaine’s mother, who offers counseling at the school, and even a gruff-seeming wrestling coach. And a scan of the history of public attitudes about acceptance of orientation diversity adds heft.
We see a variety of external pressures put on non-heterosexual people, but William does not really seem all that damaged by the prejudices as a teen, although he is victimized by baseless fears as an adult. Others, however are damaged. A good and supportive person loses a job as a result. Later, the AIDS epidemic takes many. Having to keep secrets does a fair bit of harm as well.
There was one particular scene that affected me oddly, made me anxious. I am not sure what to make of it. The scene in which an adult William returns from his home in Manhattan to Vermont for a funeral was particularly discomfiting. I have no particular affection for my “home town” and the thought of being dragged back there, even for a good cause, gives me a fear of being somehow pinned there forever. I feel that I escaped once, and might not if trapped again. Maybe like a djinn consigned again to a lamp from which he had been liberated. I am not sure why I reacted that way to William returning home. Maybe a part of this was the bitter taste of watching the residents of First Sister, Vermont being picked off by the author one by one. It seemed something other than sad. It seemed almost dismissive. As if a list of characters had been posted in the left column, living, and were being systematically dragged into the right hand column, deceased. The passings certainly make sense in the context of the story, but something that I obviously cannot adequately describe bugged me about it. I am not at all citing this as a flaw, just something I wish I could explain, but cannot.
I suppose I could go to the well one more time and say that I am ambivalent about In One Person, but I am not. What Irving did for the delicate subject of abortion in Cider House Rules, he does for sexual diversity here, humanizing a difficult subject, making us see the humanity of those too-often considered outsiders. Irving has written a moving story with believable characters, people we can care about and shows without telling.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Irving's personal and FB pages
December 12, 2022
Soy muy rencoroso, desde chico lo soy. Pero de la misma forma que confieso este defectillo también os diré que soy muy democrático en mis rencores. Trato por igual a ese amigo que resultó que no lo era tanto como a esa amante juguetona que hasta de mí quiso hacer su juguete como al autor de un libro que, pese a intentarlo de verdad, con ganas, no consiga interesarme en sus cosas o en sus formas: huyo de ellos como de la peste, dependiendo la velocidad y la radicalidad de la huida únicamente del tiempo que fui engañado, de la dedicación prestada a la relación y de las ilusiones en ella puestas.
Hace muchos, muchos años leí El hotel New Hampshire. Desde las primeras páginas me di cuenta de que la relación no iba a ser placentera. Sin embargo, continué: yo estaba todavía en aquellos años en los que tenía la ilusa idea de que el esfuerzo en la lectura de un libro sería premiado, primero, con su disfrute y, de propina, con un nuevo universo de maravillosas conexiones neuronales en mi mente que me permitiría gozar de aquellas lecturas futuras que transitaran por sendas similares.
Como ya os habréis imaginado todos aquellos cuyo aburrimiento os haya empujado hasta este punto de mi comentario, eso no sucedió: terminé la novela sin conseguir disfrutar ni un poquito (el efecto que pudira haber tenido sobre mi posterior capacidad lectora es más difícil de cuantificar). John Irving fue solemnemente desterrado de mis futuras posibles lecturas.
Como con todo prejuicio, nunca se sabe el daño que uno se está autoinfligiendo sometiéndose a él. Pasados tantos años de aquello y reducida hasta casi desaparecer mi inquina contra el autor, decidí comprobarlo con la lectura de este libro.
Pues bien, me hincho de orgullo y satisfacción al poder manifestar que mi rencor hacia Irving no ha renacido y que, al mismo tiempo, no siento la necesidad de tirarme de los pelos por todo aquello que me he perdido durante todos estos años (más bien debería decir por todo aquello que no hubiera podido encontrar durante todos estos años). No me ha aburrido, incluso lo he pasado bien y hasta muy bien en algunos momentos (principalmente en los que lo he pasado mal; contradicciones del placer) pero aquello que me separó de él hace ya tanto tiempo se sigue interponiendo entre nosotros, y que no es otra cosa que lo que en la contraportada de mi libro se denomina la increíble verosimilitud de las obras de Irving y que en este caso tiene un tonillo muy almodovariano (juro que en algún momento de la obra esperaba con absoluta seguridad que aparecerían Almodovar y Mcnamara cogiditos de la mano).
November 25, 2018
”Look, here it is--I just have to say this,” young Kittredge said; he almost couldn’t look at me. “i don’t know you, I admit--I don’t have a clue who my father really was, either, But I’ve read all your books, and I know what you do--I mean, in your writing. You make all these sexual extremes seem normal--that what you do. Like Gee, that girl, or what she is--or what she’s becoming. You create these characters who are so sexually ‘different,’ as you might call them--or ‘fucked up,’ which is what I would call them--and then you expect us to sympathize with them, or feel sorry for them, or something.”
“Yes, that’s more or less what I do.” I told him.
John Irving doing that thing he do.
His story, Billy/Bill/William Abbott, begins when he meets Miss Frost, the librarian of the First Sister Public Library. In her presence he was overcome with a wave of unprecedented desire.
”I’m going to to begin by telling you about Miss Frost. While I say to everyone that I became a writer because I read a certain novel by Charles Dickens at the formative age of fifteen, the truth is I was younger than that when I first met Miss Frost and imagined having sex with her, and this moment of my sexual awakening also marked the fitful birth of my imagination. We are formed by what we desire. In less than a minute of excited, secretive longing, I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost--not necessarily in that order.”
Hormones are so lovely in the proper dosages, and so alarming when they gallop.
Billy has a problem with inappropriate crushes. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason in who they target or why they must come at him so frequently. He develops one for his step-father Richard Abbott, embarrassing and alarming all wrapped in one explosive heart pounding package. His best friend Elaine’s mother provides a mental image that relieves... pressure... for him frequently.
”I hadn’t been honest with Elaine about my crushes: I’d not yet been brave enough to tell her that both Miss Frost and Jacques Kittredge turned me on. And how could I have told Elaine about my confounding lust for her mom? Occasionally, I was still masturbating to the homely and flat-chested Martha Hadley--that tall, big-boned woman with a wide, thin-lipped mouth, whose long face I imagined on those young girls who were the training bra models in my mom’s mail-order catalogs.”
Ahhh remember those days when certain pages of the Sear Roebuck Catalog could provide a bit of stimulation under the covers with a light bulb burning so hot there was fear it would catch the sheets on fire?
Mrs. Hadley was also Billy’s therapist. He has an impediment with certain words. In particular with a part of his anatomy that he is most assuredly most obsessed with. It comes out penith.
Don’t ask him to say the plural.
Miss Frost is his number one obsession, but easily his number two is a wrestler named Kittredge. The same boy that picks on him so mercilessly. The same boy that Elaine is also absolutely crazy about. It doesn’t end there. Kittredge’s mother is just as fascinating to this pair of friends, united in many things, but certainly between the two of them maybe setting an all time record in this small Vermont town for “inappropriate” obsessions.
”Elaine and I couldn’t look at him without seeing his mother, with her legs so perfectly crossed on those uncomfortable bleacher seats at Kittredge’s wrestling match; Mrs. Kittredge had seemed to watch her son’s systematic mauling of his overmatched opponent as if it were a pornographic film, but with the detached confidence of an experienced woman who knew she could do it better. ‘Your mother is a man with breasts,’ I wanted to say to Kittredge, but of course I didn’t dare.”
[image error]
John Wallace Blunt JR (Irving) wrestled at Exeter Academy. It does make me wonder which one of these boys was the one that inspired the character Kittredge. Irving wrestled competitively for more than twenty years and was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1992.
Miss Frost continues to feed Billy a bloated diet of literature. ”When I was reading with what Miss Frost described as the ‘reckless desperation of a burglar ravishing a mansion,’ she one day she said to me, ‘Slow down, William, savor, don’t gorge.’” One day she decides he is finally ready to be given the book Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
Baldwin absolutely kicks his ass.
We’ve all had those moments when a book finds its way into our hands at a waterfall juncture when we know from the first pages that life as we know it is never going to be quite the same again. As we feel new bridges and roads being built in our brains in anticipation of the skyscrapers of knowledge that will begin to rise out of the rubble of our youthful beliefs, we tingle and tremble with the excitement of the vast possibilities. As these new vistas open before us we weep for those that don’t read.
Writers kick my ass all the time.
Because William is a switch hitter, a bisexual, a man attracted to all the variations of human sexuality he finds relationships difficult.
”On this bitter cold night in New York, in February of 1978, when I was almost thirty-six, I had already decided that my bisexuality meant I would be categorized as more unreliable than usual by straight women, while at the same time (and for the same reasons) I would never be entirely trusted by gay men.”
Trust is a bedrock part of any relationship and it is hard enough when we deal with it in what is considered “traditional” arrangements. I guess it would only make sense that more pressure would be felt by the other side of the equation if one partner finds a larger percentage of the population potentially attractive.
So is Billy actually John Irving? Joy Tipping of the Dallas News had a chance to ask Irving a few questions about his own longings sexually.
Irving, 70, says that although “Billy is not me,” he is “my imagination of what I might have been if I’d acted on all my earliest impulses as a young teenager.”
The author says he has “always identified with and sympathized with a wide range of sexual desires. When I was a boy, I was confusingly attracted to just about everyone; in lieu of having much in the way of actual sex — this was the ’50s — I imagined having sex all the time, with a disturbing variety of people.
“I was attracted to my friends’ mothers, to girls my own age, and — at the all-boys’ school I attended, where I was on the wrestling team — to certain older boys among my teammates. Easily two-thirds of my sexual fantasies frightened me.”
He was, he says, terrified of being gay. “It turned out that I liked girls, but the memory of my attractions to the ‘wrong’ people never left me,” he says. “The impulse to bisexuality was very strong; my earliest sexual experiences — more important, my earliest sexual imaginings — taught me that sexual desire is mutable.”
With regard to tolerance or lack thereof, Irving notes, “I think our sympathy for others comes, in part, from our ability to remember our feelings. … Certainly, sexual tolerance comes from being honest with ourselves about what we have imagined sexually.”
This book has and will make a lot of people uncomfortable. There are lots of explicit references to sexual organs and sexual situations, although very little actual sex occurs in the book. Most of this book is about longing, about not understanding, and maybe most importantly about being honest about desire. It takes decades for Billy to assemble enough layers of perception to overcome the mixed bag of self-loathing and guilt so he can finally discover who he is supposed to be. The next step is finding a way to be comfortable with the person he finds.
Irving takes us through the Vietnam era where men had the choice of checking the “homosexual tendencies” box that would label them 4-F or unfit for service. (Being in the closet could cost you your life.) We also experience the carnage to his friends as the beginning of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s sweeps through his acquaintances with efficient devastation. I can only hope that people who are afraid of themselves, afraid of who they love and desire, will read this book and feel a little braver about accepting who they were meant to be.
“Yes, that’s more or less what I do.” I told him.
John Irving doing that thing he do.
His story, Billy/Bill/William Abbott, begins when he meets Miss Frost, the librarian of the First Sister Public Library. In her presence he was overcome with a wave of unprecedented desire.
”I’m going to to begin by telling you about Miss Frost. While I say to everyone that I became a writer because I read a certain novel by Charles Dickens at the formative age of fifteen, the truth is I was younger than that when I first met Miss Frost and imagined having sex with her, and this moment of my sexual awakening also marked the fitful birth of my imagination. We are formed by what we desire. In less than a minute of excited, secretive longing, I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost--not necessarily in that order.”
Hormones are so lovely in the proper dosages, and so alarming when they gallop.
Billy has a problem with inappropriate crushes. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason in who they target or why they must come at him so frequently. He develops one for his step-father Richard Abbott, embarrassing and alarming all wrapped in one explosive heart pounding package. His best friend Elaine’s mother provides a mental image that relieves... pressure... for him frequently.
”I hadn’t been honest with Elaine about my crushes: I’d not yet been brave enough to tell her that both Miss Frost and Jacques Kittredge turned me on. And how could I have told Elaine about my confounding lust for her mom? Occasionally, I was still masturbating to the homely and flat-chested Martha Hadley--that tall, big-boned woman with a wide, thin-lipped mouth, whose long face I imagined on those young girls who were the training bra models in my mom’s mail-order catalogs.”
Ahhh remember those days when certain pages of the Sear Roebuck Catalog could provide a bit of stimulation under the covers with a light bulb burning so hot there was fear it would catch the sheets on fire?
Mrs. Hadley was also Billy’s therapist. He has an impediment with certain words. In particular with a part of his anatomy that he is most assuredly most obsessed with. It comes out penith.
Don’t ask him to say the plural.
Miss Frost is his number one obsession, but easily his number two is a wrestler named Kittredge. The same boy that picks on him so mercilessly. The same boy that Elaine is also absolutely crazy about. It doesn’t end there. Kittredge’s mother is just as fascinating to this pair of friends, united in many things, but certainly between the two of them maybe setting an all time record in this small Vermont town for “inappropriate” obsessions.
”Elaine and I couldn’t look at him without seeing his mother, with her legs so perfectly crossed on those uncomfortable bleacher seats at Kittredge’s wrestling match; Mrs. Kittredge had seemed to watch her son’s systematic mauling of his overmatched opponent as if it were a pornographic film, but with the detached confidence of an experienced woman who knew she could do it better. ‘Your mother is a man with breasts,’ I wanted to say to Kittredge, but of course I didn’t dare.”
[image error]
John Wallace Blunt JR (Irving) wrestled at Exeter Academy. It does make me wonder which one of these boys was the one that inspired the character Kittredge. Irving wrestled competitively for more than twenty years and was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1992.
Miss Frost continues to feed Billy a bloated diet of literature. ”When I was reading with what Miss Frost described as the ‘reckless desperation of a burglar ravishing a mansion,’ she one day she said to me, ‘Slow down, William, savor, don’t gorge.’” One day she decides he is finally ready to be given the book Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
Baldwin absolutely kicks his ass.
We’ve all had those moments when a book finds its way into our hands at a waterfall juncture when we know from the first pages that life as we know it is never going to be quite the same again. As we feel new bridges and roads being built in our brains in anticipation of the skyscrapers of knowledge that will begin to rise out of the rubble of our youthful beliefs, we tingle and tremble with the excitement of the vast possibilities. As these new vistas open before us we weep for those that don’t read.
Writers kick my ass all the time.
Because William is a switch hitter, a bisexual, a man attracted to all the variations of human sexuality he finds relationships difficult.
”On this bitter cold night in New York, in February of 1978, when I was almost thirty-six, I had already decided that my bisexuality meant I would be categorized as more unreliable than usual by straight women, while at the same time (and for the same reasons) I would never be entirely trusted by gay men.”
Trust is a bedrock part of any relationship and it is hard enough when we deal with it in what is considered “traditional” arrangements. I guess it would only make sense that more pressure would be felt by the other side of the equation if one partner finds a larger percentage of the population potentially attractive.
So is Billy actually John Irving? Joy Tipping of the Dallas News had a chance to ask Irving a few questions about his own longings sexually.
Irving, 70, says that although “Billy is not me,” he is “my imagination of what I might have been if I’d acted on all my earliest impulses as a young teenager.”
The author says he has “always identified with and sympathized with a wide range of sexual desires. When I was a boy, I was confusingly attracted to just about everyone; in lieu of having much in the way of actual sex — this was the ’50s — I imagined having sex all the time, with a disturbing variety of people.
“I was attracted to my friends’ mothers, to girls my own age, and — at the all-boys’ school I attended, where I was on the wrestling team — to certain older boys among my teammates. Easily two-thirds of my sexual fantasies frightened me.”
He was, he says, terrified of being gay. “It turned out that I liked girls, but the memory of my attractions to the ‘wrong’ people never left me,” he says. “The impulse to bisexuality was very strong; my earliest sexual experiences — more important, my earliest sexual imaginings — taught me that sexual desire is mutable.”
With regard to tolerance or lack thereof, Irving notes, “I think our sympathy for others comes, in part, from our ability to remember our feelings. … Certainly, sexual tolerance comes from being honest with ourselves about what we have imagined sexually.”
This book has and will make a lot of people uncomfortable. There are lots of explicit references to sexual organs and sexual situations, although very little actual sex occurs in the book. Most of this book is about longing, about not understanding, and maybe most importantly about being honest about desire. It takes decades for Billy to assemble enough layers of perception to overcome the mixed bag of self-loathing and guilt so he can finally discover who he is supposed to be. The next step is finding a way to be comfortable with the person he finds.
Irving takes us through the Vietnam era where men had the choice of checking the “homosexual tendencies” box that would label them 4-F or unfit for service. (Being in the closet could cost you your life.) We also experience the carnage to his friends as the beginning of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s sweeps through his acquaintances with efficient devastation. I can only hope that people who are afraid of themselves, afraid of who they love and desire, will read this book and feel a little braver about accepting who they were meant to be.
August 10, 2025
WINNER OF THE 25th Lambda Literary Award—BEST BISEXUAL LITERATURE!
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp. His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”
My Review: I'll start with the personal part: I don't “get” bisexuals. We're all bisexual, on a sliding scale developed by good ol' Doctor Kinsey. Sex feels good (if you're doing it right) and the plumbing isn't all that important. Or wouldn't be if the Longface Puritans League would quit getting all pantiwadulous over the subject.
So what, is then my response to the avowed bisexual. Big deal, says I. If I think the aforementioned bisexual is desirable, I will then proceed to ask him for a date. And he will say yes or no. And the world will continue to spin. But not one single thing will happen because he's bisexual.
All very simple, right? Oh so wrong. To know you're attracted to men is a defining thing for a man. Knowing that Davy Jones of the Monkees was the face I wanted to see when I woke up clarified things for me. I was, admittedly, seven at the time, and the clarity was limited to knowing that was what I wanted with no concept whatsoever of the other possibilities and requirements. But clear I was, and clear I've stayed: Men, please.
My wives knew they were marrying a gay man, and we had sex in our marriage beds. Remember the whole “sex feels good” passage above? It does! I promise! As much fun as it was, I would never have been faithful to those women, and would never have lied about it, and was clear from the get-go what my deal was...because I had An Identity. Other people didn't and don't like my identity (fuck 'em) but I had one. And bisexuals, in our binary public culture of Men Want Women and Women Want Men (unless their husbands want a three-way with another girl), don't rebel enough for the rebels or conform enough for the conformists.
That has got to suck wookie balls. Here your nature is absolutely in line with what evolution produced, you are the exemplar of the normal and ordinary human sexual response, and no one wants your ass in their camp! John Irving's novel deals with sexual awakening, romantic flowering, and relationship hell...TWICE! Billy, our narrator, knows something's wonky when he gets major wood for the town librarian AND his new stepfather. He careens through a hormonally hyperdriven adolescence, a love affair with a gay guy (such a bad bad bad idea) and on and on and on through fifty years of life as a hidden, unloved, unvalued majority member. I loved Irving's honesty about the deeply personal pain and scars he took, and dealt, through Billy's voice. I loved the honest self-appraisals scattered throughout the book, Irving stating clearly that he was a snob, that he had mixed feelings about AIDS (fear, pity, disgust) and its victims.
Because this is very much a roman à clef. It comes late in his career, but it is what it is. I love that he's written it. I love that he tells a man's story of not fitting his skin still less fitting in.
I don't love the writing. It's not memorable in any way. I can't think of one single line to quote, I can't remember where the lines I thought might do are located, and in a few days I won't remember much about this book except it's an amazement to me that I was so completely self-absorbed that I ever thought bisexuals were just tiresomely difficult to bed.
Irving changed my world-view a little bit. I hope for the better, and I expect for the long haul. I'm a lot more likely not to roll my eyes when some guy I'm hitting on tells me he's bisexual (in my age cohort, a surprisingly large number of men are “coming out” as bi). So three-plus stars. If this had been a story about heterosexuals, it would be one and only one star.
Because I need these eyeblinks to count. Time's not slowing down no matter how many kittens I sacrifice to the gods.
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp. His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”
My Review: I'll start with the personal part: I don't “get” bisexuals. We're all bisexual, on a sliding scale developed by good ol' Doctor Kinsey. Sex feels good (if you're doing it right) and the plumbing isn't all that important. Or wouldn't be if the Longface Puritans League would quit getting all pantiwadulous over the subject.
So what, is then my response to the avowed bisexual. Big deal, says I. If I think the aforementioned bisexual is desirable, I will then proceed to ask him for a date. And he will say yes or no. And the world will continue to spin. But not one single thing will happen because he's bisexual.
All very simple, right? Oh so wrong. To know you're attracted to men is a defining thing for a man. Knowing that Davy Jones of the Monkees was the face I wanted to see when I woke up clarified things for me. I was, admittedly, seven at the time, and the clarity was limited to knowing that was what I wanted with no concept whatsoever of the other possibilities and requirements. But clear I was, and clear I've stayed: Men, please.
My wives knew they were marrying a gay man, and we had sex in our marriage beds. Remember the whole “sex feels good” passage above? It does! I promise! As much fun as it was, I would never have been faithful to those women, and would never have lied about it, and was clear from the get-go what my deal was...because I had An Identity. Other people didn't and don't like my identity (fuck 'em) but I had one. And bisexuals, in our binary public culture of Men Want Women and Women Want Men (unless their husbands want a three-way with another girl), don't rebel enough for the rebels or conform enough for the conformists.
That has got to suck wookie balls. Here your nature is absolutely in line with what evolution produced, you are the exemplar of the normal and ordinary human sexual response, and no one wants your ass in their camp! John Irving's novel deals with sexual awakening, romantic flowering, and relationship hell...TWICE! Billy, our narrator, knows something's wonky when he gets major wood for the town librarian AND his new stepfather. He careens through a hormonally hyperdriven adolescence, a love affair with a gay guy (such a bad bad bad idea) and on and on and on through fifty years of life as a hidden, unloved, unvalued majority member. I loved Irving's honesty about the deeply personal pain and scars he took, and dealt, through Billy's voice. I loved the honest self-appraisals scattered throughout the book, Irving stating clearly that he was a snob, that he had mixed feelings about AIDS (fear, pity, disgust) and its victims.
Because this is very much a roman à clef. It comes late in his career, but it is what it is. I love that he's written it. I love that he tells a man's story of not fitting his skin still less fitting in.
I don't love the writing. It's not memorable in any way. I can't think of one single line to quote, I can't remember where the lines I thought might do are located, and in a few days I won't remember much about this book except it's an amazement to me that I was so completely self-absorbed that I ever thought bisexuals were just tiresomely difficult to bed.
Irving changed my world-view a little bit. I hope for the better, and I expect for the long haul. I'm a lot more likely not to roll my eyes when some guy I'm hitting on tells me he's bisexual (in my age cohort, a surprisingly large number of men are “coming out” as bi). So three-plus stars. If this had been a story about heterosexuals, it would be one and only one star.
Because I need these eyeblinks to count. Time's not slowing down no matter how many kittens I sacrifice to the gods.
April 28, 2021
This book starts out with a number of similarities to A Prayer for Owen Meany:
MC attends private boy's school ✔️
Step-father teaches at this school ✔️
Best friend has an odd voice ✔️
There's a community amateur theatrical society that the MC's family takes a regular part in. ✔️
MC has a missing and mysterious father ✔️
It was as though John Irving used the same blueprint for both novels, maybe because Owen Meany was such a success. At first I thought the similarities would have me comparing (even more than normal) In One Person to Owen Meany - and that it would fall short.
However, though there are these similarities, the books center on different topics. A Prayer for Owen Meany dealt with religion and the Vietnam War. While both of these were mentioned in this novel, neither played a dominant role.
Instead, In One Person is about human sexuality in its many and wondrous forms and about the fluidity of gender. It is about intolerance and the way society punishes those of us who are different. How taboos are made... and broken down. How visibility can bring about acceptance and how some people refuse to ever break free of their hatred of those they think are different.
To say I loved this book is an understatement. After reading A Prayer for Owen Meany several months ago, I didn't think I would ever read a John Irving novel that lived up to it.
I loved this one more. I did not want to put it down, nor did I want to read because I didn't want it to end. The last few days I've lived in this book, with these characters. John Irving has a way of making even the least mentioned characters real. Everyone you encounter is flesh and blood people with desires and pasts and feelings. You know these people. They are your friends and family and neighbors.
Often in novels, LBGQTIA+ characters are one dimensional. Their sexuality or their gender identification is their only attribute. They are not characters, they are stereotypes.
For this reason, thinking John Irving was straight, I almost didn't read this book. I was afraid of encountering a stereotype. I did not. It turns out Irving is bisexual and identified with young Billy as he discovered his blossoming desire for both girls and boys, and later for both men and women.
Gender expression and identity are prominent themes in this book too, with many characters who either enjoy cross-dressing or who are transgender.
And then there is the Aids epidemic of the '80s and '90s and how that virus terrorized the gay community.
I am breathless. I stand in awe of John Irving's brilliance, his genius. This book was amazing.
That is all.
MC attends private boy's school ✔️
Step-father teaches at this school ✔️
Best friend has an odd voice ✔️
There's a community amateur theatrical society that the MC's family takes a regular part in. ✔️
MC has a missing and mysterious father ✔️
It was as though John Irving used the same blueprint for both novels, maybe because Owen Meany was such a success. At first I thought the similarities would have me comparing (even more than normal) In One Person to Owen Meany - and that it would fall short.
However, though there are these similarities, the books center on different topics. A Prayer for Owen Meany dealt with religion and the Vietnam War. While both of these were mentioned in this novel, neither played a dominant role.
Instead, In One Person is about human sexuality in its many and wondrous forms and about the fluidity of gender. It is about intolerance and the way society punishes those of us who are different. How taboos are made... and broken down. How visibility can bring about acceptance and how some people refuse to ever break free of their hatred of those they think are different.
To say I loved this book is an understatement. After reading A Prayer for Owen Meany several months ago, I didn't think I would ever read a John Irving novel that lived up to it.
I loved this one more. I did not want to put it down, nor did I want to read because I didn't want it to end. The last few days I've lived in this book, with these characters. John Irving has a way of making even the least mentioned characters real. Everyone you encounter is flesh and blood people with desires and pasts and feelings. You know these people. They are your friends and family and neighbors.
Often in novels, LBGQTIA+ characters are one dimensional. Their sexuality or their gender identification is their only attribute. They are not characters, they are stereotypes.
For this reason, thinking John Irving was straight, I almost didn't read this book. I was afraid of encountering a stereotype. I did not. It turns out Irving is bisexual and identified with young Billy as he discovered his blossoming desire for both girls and boys, and later for both men and women.
Gender expression and identity are prominent themes in this book too, with many characters who either enjoy cross-dressing or who are transgender.
And then there is the Aids epidemic of the '80s and '90s and how that virus terrorized the gay community.
I am breathless. I stand in awe of John Irving's brilliance, his genius. This book was amazing.
That is all.
August 14, 2016
John Irving is a unique force in contemporary fiction. He can be a brave and bold voice for fairness and common sense. The complexity of his plots is matched by the quirkiness of his characters. Sexual identity, with all its twists and permutations, would seem like a perfect fit for the Irving treatment. Sadly, it is not. This story is narrated by Bill Abbott, an impressionable adolescent who is struggling with his bisexuality at a repressive boarding school in the waning days of the 1950's. He comes under the influence of a transsexual librarian with a big heart who provides him with a relevant reading list and his first sexual experience. He embarks on a transcontinental sexual odyssey, occasionally returning to Vermont to bury another of his colorful relatives. One problem is that Bill and his amazing coterie of misfits and malcontents never come alive as characters. They seem to function primarily as agents to further Irving's political agenda. Even if you agree with his premise, that sexual expression is a personal choice which should be guaranteed to all, it is difficult to overlook his awkward prose and mind-numbing repetition. I found the whole thing tiresome. Even the plot, with it's Dickensian twists and coincidences, grated on me. I found myself skimming the last few pages because I just wanted it to end. This was a big disappointment.
put-aside
September 22, 2012Got to page 102 and it was a struggle. John Irving is a fine writer, but like many men his age, John Updike among them, he goes into his later years with one foot in the grave and one hand on his genitals. I never read so much about breasts and penises in one place without anyone having actual sex. This is fair: he's the author and he can do what he wants. But I'm getting too old for this.
March 6, 2022
In One Person by John Irving was a struggle, there were a few highlights of interest – fascination even, but most of it was dross. Shame really, as my previous two reads of his, Garp and Owen Meaney were terrific.
This one centres around the life story of Billy, it’s a coming-of-age piece starting with his dubious beginnings, through to his school and college days and then his career as a writer. The focus is really about the lad coming to terms with, and his life as a bisexual. Poor Billy used to believe he was experiencing crushes on the “wrong people”. For example, he loved the school bully – Kitteridge, and he had a crush on the local librarian, Miss Frost. In fact, Miss Frost and Kitteridge are only two of the fifteen or twenty significant characters in this long story. That’s a lot – but to be fair, the author made it easy to follow who was who in the zoo.
What I liked
The stuff I liked (20% of this novel) was the fascinating insight into the lives and loves of gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Whether it be the guilt experienced by younger people, or the world of gay clubs, where certain devices are used to enable gay men to fully explore their sex lives or the judgement and horrible attitudes some people have towards this group of people. There is a real focus here on transvestitism, and transgenderism (referred to as transexuals – as much of this book is set in the 1960s). Also, towards the end of the book – the focus on the terrible AIDS epidemic was insightful. Not only how the gay community dealt with the condition but also the progressive nature of the disease and how these poor people suffered as they headed towards their inevitable demise.
What I found tiresome
The remaining 80% of this effort was tedious. It read like a gossip magazine, a real ‘he said, she said’, or ‘he did, she did’ style of narrative. It was dreadful. I mean, this went on for pages and pages and pages. It never ended – and I just didn’t care. I don’t recall Garp or Owen Meaney being anything like this. The author also endlessly referred to plays written by the likes of Shakespeare, I mean ENDLESSLY, as the book also centred around a local stage performance group. The characters were often cast in interesting (to the author) roles, maybe to highlight certain aspects of their personalities or sexual orientations. Irving just overplayed his hand in this regard massively. What was he thinking? Surely, he was bored witless writing this?
I can normally find something interesting about anything, and as described previously, the LGBTQ stuff was genuinely worthwhile reading. But one thing that drives me totally to the point of wanting to stick pins in my eyes are “he said, she said/he did she did” stories, whether it be in a book or in real-life. Sure, we all need a bit of that, but when it dominates it’s horrible.
There you go. This was a no story, story. I only persisted because of some of the interesting topics that popped up from time to time. I should have stopped on day two.
2-Stars
This one centres around the life story of Billy, it’s a coming-of-age piece starting with his dubious beginnings, through to his school and college days and then his career as a writer. The focus is really about the lad coming to terms with, and his life as a bisexual. Poor Billy used to believe he was experiencing crushes on the “wrong people”. For example, he loved the school bully – Kitteridge, and he had a crush on the local librarian, Miss Frost. In fact, Miss Frost and Kitteridge are only two of the fifteen or twenty significant characters in this long story. That’s a lot – but to be fair, the author made it easy to follow who was who in the zoo.
What I liked
The stuff I liked (20% of this novel) was the fascinating insight into the lives and loves of gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Whether it be the guilt experienced by younger people, or the world of gay clubs, where certain devices are used to enable gay men to fully explore their sex lives or the judgement and horrible attitudes some people have towards this group of people. There is a real focus here on transvestitism, and transgenderism (referred to as transexuals – as much of this book is set in the 1960s). Also, towards the end of the book – the focus on the terrible AIDS epidemic was insightful. Not only how the gay community dealt with the condition but also the progressive nature of the disease and how these poor people suffered as they headed towards their inevitable demise.
What I found tiresome
The remaining 80% of this effort was tedious. It read like a gossip magazine, a real ‘he said, she said’, or ‘he did, she did’ style of narrative. It was dreadful. I mean, this went on for pages and pages and pages. It never ended – and I just didn’t care. I don’t recall Garp or Owen Meaney being anything like this. The author also endlessly referred to plays written by the likes of Shakespeare, I mean ENDLESSLY, as the book also centred around a local stage performance group. The characters were often cast in interesting (to the author) roles, maybe to highlight certain aspects of their personalities or sexual orientations. Irving just overplayed his hand in this regard massively. What was he thinking? Surely, he was bored witless writing this?
I can normally find something interesting about anything, and as described previously, the LGBTQ stuff was genuinely worthwhile reading. But one thing that drives me totally to the point of wanting to stick pins in my eyes are “he said, she said/he did she did” stories, whether it be in a book or in real-life. Sure, we all need a bit of that, but when it dominates it’s horrible.
There you go. This was a no story, story. I only persisted because of some of the interesting topics that popped up from time to time. I should have stopped on day two.
2-Stars
January 29, 2012
I am the editor and publisher of this novel. Here's what I think about it:
We use the word "great' so often that we've degraded its meaning. Great haircut! Great idea! Great casserole! So what can I say, without committing sins of hyperbole, about an author who truly does possess greatness?
IN ONE PERSON is John Irving's thirteenth novel. Having closely read all of the others, I can say with some confidence that it is as relevant to our time and as satisfying a story as were THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, and A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY when they were published.
Like those works, IN ONE PERSON addresses the search for identity and connection in a world that is not always tolerant of unconventional people. John Irving has long been a champion for sexual freedom. In this novel, his portrait of the life and loves of a bisexual man, and the mutability of gender and desire, will be a revelation for some and an affirmation for others.
The novel is dedicated to Tony Richardson, a noted film director who brought THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE to the screen. In his memoir, Richardson wrote this about John Irving's fiction: "He seems to me to be one of the most original and towering of contemporary writers. He is a born storyteller in the tradition of Fielding and Dickens, with, like them, an ability to see his characters from the outside...as well as depicting their feelings and passions physically from the outside....I predict that John's courage and the range of his universe will still be durable when many of his more intellectually acclaimed rivals will have dwindled away."
I hope you will experience IN ONE PERSON as deeply as I have. If you've never read John Irving before, this novel is an entertaining and enriching way to begin. If you've read him before, welcome back. You will once again marvel at the craft and imagination and probity of a great American writer.
We use the word "great' so often that we've degraded its meaning. Great haircut! Great idea! Great casserole! So what can I say, without committing sins of hyperbole, about an author who truly does possess greatness?
IN ONE PERSON is John Irving's thirteenth novel. Having closely read all of the others, I can say with some confidence that it is as relevant to our time and as satisfying a story as were THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, and A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY when they were published.
Like those works, IN ONE PERSON addresses the search for identity and connection in a world that is not always tolerant of unconventional people. John Irving has long been a champion for sexual freedom. In this novel, his portrait of the life and loves of a bisexual man, and the mutability of gender and desire, will be a revelation for some and an affirmation for others.
The novel is dedicated to Tony Richardson, a noted film director who brought THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE to the screen. In his memoir, Richardson wrote this about John Irving's fiction: "He seems to me to be one of the most original and towering of contemporary writers. He is a born storyteller in the tradition of Fielding and Dickens, with, like them, an ability to see his characters from the outside...as well as depicting their feelings and passions physically from the outside....I predict that John's courage and the range of his universe will still be durable when many of his more intellectually acclaimed rivals will have dwindled away."
I hope you will experience IN ONE PERSON as deeply as I have. If you've never read John Irving before, this novel is an entertaining and enriching way to begin. If you've read him before, welcome back. You will once again marvel at the craft and imagination and probity of a great American writer.
January 4, 2016
john, john, john!!
you suck me in.
every time!
there's this matrix
on wikipedia
(now deleted, but preserved here: http://s.mlkshk.com/r/5BKP). i am sure you have seen it. the matrix makes me sigh and amuses me. it's a conundrum.
near the end of the book, I felt like you were ticking boxes. giving readers a list of socially important things to mull. i don't take issue with the issues...they are important and need to be written about so that tolerance and acceptance become the norms...i take issue with the fact this device (is that what it was?) interrupted the flow of the story and yanked me out of my irving induced haze of literary delight. it was like being smacked in the face with a big fish. possibly a frozen big fish.
that cost you one-star. no. i will not give it back.
i still love you.
call me.
you suck me in.
every time!
there's this matrix
near the end of the book, I felt like you were ticking boxes. giving readers a list of socially important things to mull. i don't take issue with the issues...they are important and need to be written about so that tolerance and acceptance become the norms...i take issue with the fact this device (is that what it was?) interrupted the flow of the story and yanked me out of my irving induced haze of literary delight. it was like being smacked in the face with a big fish. possibly a frozen big fish.
that cost you one-star. no. i will not give it back.
i still love you.
call me.
September 9, 2012
As a graduate student I had a great interest in gender studies; I thought that domain was where both the most interesting fiction and scholarship was happening.
Unfortunately while reading this novel, it seemed like it was intended a be political statement on gender studies filled with maxims about sexual difference. The actual story was meandering and flat; it needed to be about 150 pages shorter. It should not take a novel 350 pages to become compelling. I kept going because I knew Irving had something to say; I just wish he had more of a story.
Unfortunately while reading this novel, it seemed like it was intended a be political statement on gender studies filled with maxims about sexual difference. The actual story was meandering and flat; it needed to be about 150 pages shorter. It should not take a novel 350 pages to become compelling. I kept going because I knew Irving had something to say; I just wish he had more of a story.
March 7, 2014
I can remember the first time I heard anything about John Irving. I was in college, at a family reunion. My Dad had two cousins, spinsters, sisters ,never been married. In their 70's.
They were in something called a "bookclub". (This was the early 80s.) I'd never heard of a "bookclub"? What was that? They were talking about the different books they had been reading in their club,and all their members were about their age. Except this one "girl" as they called her. Now considering their age this "girl" could have been 55 for all I knew. These old ladies were charming, funny,and they had had a couple cocktails by now.....This new "girl" had suggested this new book to read in the "club" called THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving. These old "girls" were talking about how they tried to read this book,and it was filth, absolute filth. I asked my mother for an ink pen,and a slip of paper which she dug out of her purse,and I wrote down the title and author, and slipped the paper in my pocket. I thank these ladies for exposing me to Irving. I got a paperback copy the following day at the shopping center,and began to read....hooked....big time. I became an Irving fan right there. I read his other books,and CIDERHOUSE RULES was a biggie for me. I read a couple others,and wasn't as enamored with those as his earlier works. Then a goodreads buddy told me he was reading this one. I had downloaded it onto my NOOK , when it first came out, but just hadn't gotten to it yet...till yesterday......
The thing about Irving that I have liked is he isn't afraid to hit subjects that curl some people toes. I like controversial books, subjects,and being open minded enough to read about subjects that might make me see a side of things I hadn't thought of before. I may not agree with the subject matter, may not agree with the characters ideals, and I might be shocked at times...but the shock value....is what trips my trigger. I also think Irving is drop dead honest,and honest about things many people just gloss over.
11 years ago I started a bookclub. We have read some things that might bother some people . We read MIDDLESEX, which I think is a great book,and 2 of the members in the club flat out refused to read it due to its subject matter. Such a shame they were that closed minded. I think the same can be said about this novel. Those people have no idea what they are missing. For one thing, Irving is a great writer. He weaves a tale that keep you guessing, keeps you glued to your chair, furiously reading.....
However, Irving deals with his subjects, & his characters in honest, charming, hilarious, raw, open minded, and mind bending ways that many people can't handle. I don't have a problem with it, because I try to be open minded,and willing to be challenged to think in different ways. Irving's not afraid to hit on something that he knows will make some people seethe with anger,and yet others come away from his works with wow.....hadn't thought about it that way. His characters are real.... they speak their minds. They are quirky yes, open, accessible, shocking, vulnerable, thought provoking.... and the list goes on.
I found in this novel that I cared about all the characters deeply. I wanted them to be happy,and to be able to make heads or tails of their messy lives,and feel triumphant in their endeavors to live their lives the way they truly want, without someone trying to make them feel they are less of a person or feel judged for the choices they make....or things they feel. Life is messy, and you have to cope....which is what I think Irving tries to say in all his works & to make us think...think for ourselves.... to be bold.... to be not afraid to do what you feel is right.
This novel will stick with me for a long time to come...just like GARP has and CIDERHOUSE RULES has. I think I need to read THE PRAYERS OF OWEN MEANY. I hear constantly that it's people's fav Irving novel. I have an unread copy on my shelf. For now my 3 tops are GARP, CIDER RULES, and ONE PERSON. I read the whole book in less then 24 hours....and I got nothing accomplished. It felt good to have John back in his game. I couldn't put this one down.
I think I am going to suggest we read THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP for my bookclub in 2015. (We have our books chosen a year in advance.) Then maybe someone in the group will talk about that filth we read...
Thank you Kath,and Helen for opening my eyes to filth, for opening my eyes to Irving!!!!!
They were in something called a "bookclub". (This was the early 80s.) I'd never heard of a "bookclub"? What was that? They were talking about the different books they had been reading in their club,and all their members were about their age. Except this one "girl" as they called her. Now considering their age this "girl" could have been 55 for all I knew. These old ladies were charming, funny,and they had had a couple cocktails by now.....This new "girl" had suggested this new book to read in the "club" called THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving. These old "girls" were talking about how they tried to read this book,and it was filth, absolute filth. I asked my mother for an ink pen,and a slip of paper which she dug out of her purse,and I wrote down the title and author, and slipped the paper in my pocket. I thank these ladies for exposing me to Irving. I got a paperback copy the following day at the shopping center,and began to read....hooked....big time. I became an Irving fan right there. I read his other books,and CIDERHOUSE RULES was a biggie for me. I read a couple others,and wasn't as enamored with those as his earlier works. Then a goodreads buddy told me he was reading this one. I had downloaded it onto my NOOK , when it first came out, but just hadn't gotten to it yet...till yesterday......
The thing about Irving that I have liked is he isn't afraid to hit subjects that curl some people toes. I like controversial books, subjects,and being open minded enough to read about subjects that might make me see a side of things I hadn't thought of before. I may not agree with the subject matter, may not agree with the characters ideals, and I might be shocked at times...but the shock value....is what trips my trigger. I also think Irving is drop dead honest,and honest about things many people just gloss over.
11 years ago I started a bookclub. We have read some things that might bother some people . We read MIDDLESEX, which I think is a great book,and 2 of the members in the club flat out refused to read it due to its subject matter. Such a shame they were that closed minded. I think the same can be said about this novel. Those people have no idea what they are missing. For one thing, Irving is a great writer. He weaves a tale that keep you guessing, keeps you glued to your chair, furiously reading.....
However, Irving deals with his subjects, & his characters in honest, charming, hilarious, raw, open minded, and mind bending ways that many people can't handle. I don't have a problem with it, because I try to be open minded,and willing to be challenged to think in different ways. Irving's not afraid to hit on something that he knows will make some people seethe with anger,and yet others come away from his works with wow.....hadn't thought about it that way. His characters are real.... they speak their minds. They are quirky yes, open, accessible, shocking, vulnerable, thought provoking.... and the list goes on.
I found in this novel that I cared about all the characters deeply. I wanted them to be happy,and to be able to make heads or tails of their messy lives,and feel triumphant in their endeavors to live their lives the way they truly want, without someone trying to make them feel they are less of a person or feel judged for the choices they make....or things they feel. Life is messy, and you have to cope....which is what I think Irving tries to say in all his works & to make us think...think for ourselves.... to be bold.... to be not afraid to do what you feel is right.
This novel will stick with me for a long time to come...just like GARP has and CIDERHOUSE RULES has. I think I need to read THE PRAYERS OF OWEN MEANY. I hear constantly that it's people's fav Irving novel. I have an unread copy on my shelf. For now my 3 tops are GARP, CIDER RULES, and ONE PERSON. I read the whole book in less then 24 hours....and I got nothing accomplished. It felt good to have John back in his game. I couldn't put this one down.
I think I am going to suggest we read THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP for my bookclub in 2015. (We have our books chosen a year in advance.) Then maybe someone in the group will talk about that filth we read...
Thank you Kath,and Helen for opening my eyes to filth, for opening my eyes to Irving!!!!!
February 12, 2016
In One Person is the tragi/comedic rollicking ride through the life of Bill Abbott; a boy who “has crushes on the wrong people", bisexual writer, graduate of Favourite River Academy in Vermont and finally successful novelist. As is usually the case in John Irving's novels, it features a family of quirky characters, wrestling and tackles the subject of sexual identity. Full of the usual suspects, the novel includes one with a speech impediment, a cross-dresser, a lifelong best friend/sometime lover, an absentee father and of course Bill himself, a writer. There are some wonderful chapters during Bill's early life showcasing the drama club's rendition of Shakespeare's plays; the attempts to cast boys in the female roles were often hilarious.
The novel contains a frank view of the aids epidemic of the 1980s and the tragic consequences of this abhorrent disease. I thought this part wonderful purely for it's informative role for readers who did not live through that grim era. Kudos to Irving for highlighting, some thirty years later, the absolute need for safe sex practices. It also speaks of the societal intolerance that gays have had to endure, especially bisexuals; you can empathise with Bill as he endeavours to find his place in society as neither a gay man nor a heterosexual.
“Oh how I loved him – especially as a her!”
“In reading, as in writing, all one needed – that is, in order to have an utterly absorbing journey – was a believable but formidable relationship”
“My dear boy, please don't put a label on me – don't make me a category before you get to know me”
In One Person had me hooked from the first page. It has everything one comes to expect from John Irving and then some. Serious, humorous, sometimes sad: an absorbing read for me. Better than Last Night in Twisted River, not as good as the signature The World According to Garp or The Cider House Rules; for all lovers of John Irving novels. Overall, thebook earns a 4★ rating and my hope that Irving keeps writing books until I'm too old to read them.
May 17, 2016
DNF @ 36%
I have decided to move on from this one. There is just nothing in this story that keeps me interested, and that is a huge shame because the premise of the book - a coming of age story of a young guy who discovers he is not fitting in with the people around him because of his outlook on life and his sexuality - sounded somewhat intriguing.
I have no idea what to expect, but after just over a third in the book, I just cannot buy into the story or the characters. This is meant to be a tragic comedy, but so far the comedy has escaped me. It does not help that much of the book reminds me of Catcher in the Rye and its protagonist. I could not stand Holden Caulfield. There, I said it. So, having another story centre on a character that seems much like Holden will not work in the book's favour. Not for me, anyway.
What's more, none of the other characters seem to be fleshed out (except for old Henry) and so far the construct of personalities that are mostly made up of social stereotypes is just leaving me comparing the book to a number of other books which I would rather be reading.
I take this as a sure sign that it is time to move on.
Next!
I have decided to move on from this one. There is just nothing in this story that keeps me interested, and that is a huge shame because the premise of the book - a coming of age story of a young guy who discovers he is not fitting in with the people around him because of his outlook on life and his sexuality - sounded somewhat intriguing.
I have no idea what to expect, but after just over a third in the book, I just cannot buy into the story or the characters. This is meant to be a tragic comedy, but so far the comedy has escaped me. It does not help that much of the book reminds me of Catcher in the Rye and its protagonist. I could not stand Holden Caulfield. There, I said it. So, having another story centre on a character that seems much like Holden will not work in the book's favour. Not for me, anyway.
What's more, none of the other characters seem to be fleshed out (except for old Henry) and so far the construct of personalities that are mostly made up of social stereotypes is just leaving me comparing the book to a number of other books which I would rather be reading.
I take this as a sure sign that it is time to move on.
Next!
June 16, 2012
I'm going to have to say that this book is my least favorite of Irving's. I can sum it up in three words:
Wash, Rinse, Repeat!
There were times when I thought I was reading A Prayer for Owen Meany. Change the name of the narrator and the town, and instead of focusing on friendship and the Vietnam War, focus on homosexuality and the Aids Epidemic.
Like I said - wash, rinse, repeat.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat!
There were times when I thought I was reading A Prayer for Owen Meany. Change the name of the narrator and the town, and instead of focusing on friendship and the Vietnam War, focus on homosexuality and the Aids Epidemic.
Like I said - wash, rinse, repeat.
September 20, 2017
I am conflicted in my feelings about this book. The tone of the story is everyday, and that serves to normalize the "deviant" sexualities on display. This is sucessful, and in many ways, the point.
However , there is a strange tension between the hard-to-believe and the boring. I found it hard to accept the high percentage of gay, cross-dressing, or transgender people (there is just one lesbian woman, Gerry) in a small town, all of whom are connected somehow to Billy, the bisexual narrator. Billy, who writes only 4 novels in the course of his career, never has to take on other work for money, and yet he doesn't do much interesting with himself. He has been normalized so far as to be dull, and though the people in his life who play brief roles (Miss Frost, Kitteredge, Franny, even Donna) are far more interesting, they are gone from the narrative too quickly.
The last third of the book is a roll call of the sick and dying, and while this should be poignant (Vietnam, AIDS), it's too rote. At the end, Billy claims that Gee changes his life- he becomes a teacher, he becomes a little political- but really Billy doesn't seem to change much throughout the narrative. It's as though the others revolve around him, and he is far more the observer than the participant. As Larry, Billy's friend and former lover says, Billy keeps too much distance.
All that said, there aren't too many books that take on a bisexual male narrator, and so that was interesting enough.
However , there is a strange tension between the hard-to-believe and the boring. I found it hard to accept the high percentage of gay, cross-dressing, or transgender people (there is just one lesbian woman, Gerry) in a small town, all of whom are connected somehow to Billy, the bisexual narrator. Billy, who writes only 4 novels in the course of his career, never has to take on other work for money, and yet he doesn't do much interesting with himself. He has been normalized so far as to be dull, and though the people in his life who play brief roles (Miss Frost, Kitteredge, Franny, even Donna) are far more interesting, they are gone from the narrative too quickly.
The last third of the book is a roll call of the sick and dying, and while this should be poignant (Vietnam, AIDS), it's too rote. At the end, Billy claims that Gee changes his life- he becomes a teacher, he becomes a little political- but really Billy doesn't seem to change much throughout the narrative. It's as though the others revolve around him, and he is far more the observer than the participant. As Larry, Billy's friend and former lover says, Billy keeps too much distance.
All that said, there aren't too many books that take on a bisexual male narrator, and so that was interesting enough.
September 29, 2012
I was a John Irving devotee for much of my life. Since I first read Garp, I have been an avid fan of Irving's writing, and have enjoyed much of it. But since The Fourth Hand, I've been feeling somewhat cheated, and this latest novel was the last straw. I confess I have not finished it, but I am so completely detached and disinterested in the story and characters I am not compelled to spend my time slogging through to the end.
On top of the familiar people and places (New England town with a boys school; a father absent in mysterious circumstances associated with a war; a mother and family who are strange and strained; wrestling), the novel is very poorly written. This is actually the worst part of the experience. I long for the well crafted story, the characters that made you care, and the experiences that both surprised and satisfied. In this novel, Irving spoils his own story over and over again, essentially telling us what is going to happen well in advance and then dragging out the actual reveal through page after page of tedious description and narrative. I know Irving can write a story with characters I care about, so either he needs to listen to his editors or get some new ones.
Since I didn't get through more than about a third of this book, I don't know what actually happens to Billy through his life. Sadly, I don't really care. If this story was meant to develop understanding of the tribulations of the LGBT community, it fails to accomplish that. It also fails to interest or entertain.
On top of the familiar people and places (New England town with a boys school; a father absent in mysterious circumstances associated with a war; a mother and family who are strange and strained; wrestling), the novel is very poorly written. This is actually the worst part of the experience. I long for the well crafted story, the characters that made you care, and the experiences that both surprised and satisfied. In this novel, Irving spoils his own story over and over again, essentially telling us what is going to happen well in advance and then dragging out the actual reveal through page after page of tedious description and narrative. I know Irving can write a story with characters I care about, so either he needs to listen to his editors or get some new ones.
Since I didn't get through more than about a third of this book, I don't know what actually happens to Billy through his life. Sadly, I don't really care. If this story was meant to develop understanding of the tribulations of the LGBT community, it fails to accomplish that. It also fails to interest or entertain.
August 11, 2013
Man.
Despite reading a couple of good reviews I was still pretty skeptical of this book. I hold a couple of Irving's novels in very high esteem. I enjoyed Last Night in Twisted River enough, but remember it taking me a long time to get into it. I know I struggled through the first half of Until I Find You and absolutely loved the second half (the first half being around 400 pages). The Fourth Hand was pretty much disappointing but A Widow for One Year I adored. I remember how hard I fell for John Irving when Derek introduced me to him 13 years ago. I devoured Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, but The World According to Garp was the one that really sucked me in and stuck to me the longest.
I think Irving owns the ability to describe those small moments that could easily pass you by if you weren't present. He knows exactly how to capture the present, a moment, in a way that still catches me off guard. Sure, a lot of the characters come back to learn and realize much of what they didn't understand and how it affected them, but it's the experiences that many of these characters have once they've found that understanding and learned to be present that touch me the most. I'm possibly not so great at saying how, but Irving's prose speaks deeply to me.
This novel certainly surprised me and blew away my expectations. I felt a lot of the same emotions I experienced reading Garp: interest, confusion, concern, anticipation, sadness, contentment and happiness. Completely satisfied on every level of a captivating read.
Despite reading a couple of good reviews I was still pretty skeptical of this book. I hold a couple of Irving's novels in very high esteem. I enjoyed Last Night in Twisted River enough, but remember it taking me a long time to get into it. I know I struggled through the first half of Until I Find You and absolutely loved the second half (the first half being around 400 pages). The Fourth Hand was pretty much disappointing but A Widow for One Year I adored. I remember how hard I fell for John Irving when Derek introduced me to him 13 years ago. I devoured Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, but The World According to Garp was the one that really sucked me in and stuck to me the longest.
I think Irving owns the ability to describe those small moments that could easily pass you by if you weren't present. He knows exactly how to capture the present, a moment, in a way that still catches me off guard. Sure, a lot of the characters come back to learn and realize much of what they didn't understand and how it affected them, but it's the experiences that many of these characters have once they've found that understanding and learned to be present that touch me the most. I'm possibly not so great at saying how, but Irving's prose speaks deeply to me.
This novel certainly surprised me and blew away my expectations. I felt a lot of the same emotions I experienced reading Garp: interest, confusion, concern, anticipation, sadness, contentment and happiness. Completely satisfied on every level of a captivating read.
December 4, 2024
I’m sure that the order of the type setting on the front cover was not by accident:
JOHN
in one person
IRVING
How could this not then, be an autobiographical novel?
I think I’m right in saying that both the author and the main character here - Wiliam/ Bill/Billy are both born in 1942. Much of the story is set in the small town of First Sister, Vermont. I was going to say this unremarkable town but the levels of sexual diversity make it seem quite the opposite. I love the fact that Irving deals a blow to any would-be stereotyping as far as sexual diversity goes. Cross dressing lumberjacks and a tranny wrestler, you’ll mess with at your peril. Vietnam and AIDS will claim thousands of young Americans, including several from First Sister.
A long book; too long in my opinion. This was only my second Irving. My first being the magnificent Owen Meany. This left me much to ponder upon but I felt a reaction to it, a craving for boring hetero predictability with lashings of vanilla on the side.
JOHN
in one person
IRVING
How could this not then, be an autobiographical novel?
I think I’m right in saying that both the author and the main character here - Wiliam/ Bill/Billy are both born in 1942. Much of the story is set in the small town of First Sister, Vermont. I was going to say this unremarkable town but the levels of sexual diversity make it seem quite the opposite. I love the fact that Irving deals a blow to any would-be stereotyping as far as sexual diversity goes. Cross dressing lumberjacks and a tranny wrestler, you’ll mess with at your peril. Vietnam and AIDS will claim thousands of young Americans, including several from First Sister.
A long book; too long in my opinion. This was only my second Irving. My first being the magnificent Owen Meany. This left me much to ponder upon but I felt a reaction to it, a craving for boring hetero predictability with lashings of vanilla on the side.
February 8, 2018
Irving is known to tackle the tough issues of our times, sexuality, Vietnam, abortion, and in this novel: gender crossing.
Billy, the bi-sexual narrator, is a successful author in his late sixties, who has had an upbringing and career not unlike Irving’s, who is reflecting on his life and his “outsider” status. His theatrical family helped confuse gender for him right from the get-go: his grandfather was a cross-dresser, so was his absentee father, the Shakespearean theatre productions put on by his high school often had boys playing female characters, and his first real love was transgender librarian Miss Frost. Billy also is attracted to a wrestler on his school team, Kittredge, who is in turn gender-confused; Kittredge’s mother has been sleeping with her only son for years to help cure him of his attraction to the male sex. Billy makes no bones that he is attracted to both sexes and has many transient lovers throughout the book, his ideal being the lover “with small breasts and a big cock.” The only long-term relationship he has (on and off sexually, but permanently on a platonic level) is with his childhood friend Elaine, whose bra he keeps hidden under his pillow. I wondered whether with some of the explicit but humorous situations described in this book, Irving was trying to take on Philip Roth’s Portnoy.
The most dramatic part of this book is Billy and his cohort’s passage through the AIDS epidemic between 1981 and 1989. Irving describes, in excruciating detail, the AIDS related illnesses that take so many of Billy’s contemporaries away: pneumocyctis pneuomnia, vacuolar myelopathy, esophageal candidiasis, cytomegalovirus and fulminant diarrhea, to name a few. Billy (who’s been using condoms since ’68) is spared, and walks through this death passage like a ghost, full of survivor guilt, feeling even more the outsider. He sees gay caregivers succumb, the wives of bisexual men get infected and their children commit suicide, and single mothers of afflicted children inject themselves with their dying offsprings’ blood in order to share in the tragedy. What was a funny book detailing Billy’s coming of age in the ’60’s becomes a dark tale by the time we arrive in the ’80’s.
The narrative style is disappointing: conversational, first person, jumping forward in time and back frequently and full of parenthetical explanations. We return to the same scene or situation many times over during the book and on each visit Irving gives us a bit more information for dramatic impact, a kind of writer’s cop-out.
I wondered whether Billy’s adventures and reflections were meant to arrive at the conclusion given to him by his father: “We already are who we are, aren’t we?”. All he can do is find a greater deal of acceptance and integration as we move into the new millennium. And yet, with this book, Irving has blown our stereotypical impressions of gender wide open to embrace new permutations and combinations of what it is to be “normal.”
This is not another Garp, but it certainly is an extension of Owen Meany with its amateur theatrical family setting, weak narrator, absentee father, surrogate step-father, strong maternal figures, and grand theme (AIDS instead of Vietnam)—yet another exploration of a subject that we prefer to keep in the taboo closet.
Billy, the bi-sexual narrator, is a successful author in his late sixties, who has had an upbringing and career not unlike Irving’s, who is reflecting on his life and his “outsider” status. His theatrical family helped confuse gender for him right from the get-go: his grandfather was a cross-dresser, so was his absentee father, the Shakespearean theatre productions put on by his high school often had boys playing female characters, and his first real love was transgender librarian Miss Frost. Billy also is attracted to a wrestler on his school team, Kittredge, who is in turn gender-confused; Kittredge’s mother has been sleeping with her only son for years to help cure him of his attraction to the male sex. Billy makes no bones that he is attracted to both sexes and has many transient lovers throughout the book, his ideal being the lover “with small breasts and a big cock.” The only long-term relationship he has (on and off sexually, but permanently on a platonic level) is with his childhood friend Elaine, whose bra he keeps hidden under his pillow. I wondered whether with some of the explicit but humorous situations described in this book, Irving was trying to take on Philip Roth’s Portnoy.
The most dramatic part of this book is Billy and his cohort’s passage through the AIDS epidemic between 1981 and 1989. Irving describes, in excruciating detail, the AIDS related illnesses that take so many of Billy’s contemporaries away: pneumocyctis pneuomnia, vacuolar myelopathy, esophageal candidiasis, cytomegalovirus and fulminant diarrhea, to name a few. Billy (who’s been using condoms since ’68) is spared, and walks through this death passage like a ghost, full of survivor guilt, feeling even more the outsider. He sees gay caregivers succumb, the wives of bisexual men get infected and their children commit suicide, and single mothers of afflicted children inject themselves with their dying offsprings’ blood in order to share in the tragedy. What was a funny book detailing Billy’s coming of age in the ’60’s becomes a dark tale by the time we arrive in the ’80’s.
The narrative style is disappointing: conversational, first person, jumping forward in time and back frequently and full of parenthetical explanations. We return to the same scene or situation many times over during the book and on each visit Irving gives us a bit more information for dramatic impact, a kind of writer’s cop-out.
I wondered whether Billy’s adventures and reflections were meant to arrive at the conclusion given to him by his father: “We already are who we are, aren’t we?”. All he can do is find a greater deal of acceptance and integration as we move into the new millennium. And yet, with this book, Irving has blown our stereotypical impressions of gender wide open to embrace new permutations and combinations of what it is to be “normal.”
This is not another Garp, but it certainly is an extension of Owen Meany with its amateur theatrical family setting, weak narrator, absentee father, surrogate step-father, strong maternal figures, and grand theme (AIDS instead of Vietnam)—yet another exploration of a subject that we prefer to keep in the taboo closet.
July 30, 2012
I loved this big-hearted novel that portrays the life trajectory of boy growing up bisexual in a small Vermont town in the 50's and his erotic and personal transformations to old age.
Coming of age for Bill begins to veer in disturbing fashion by crushes on "the wrong people". These include a fellow private school student, who is a champion wrestler and actor in the town drama group, and older women such as the town librarian, Miss Frost. Despite the usual homophobic repression and antagonism from the small town society and many of Bill's family members, his vibrant spirit is supported by a special set of people. Prominent among these resources are a cross-dressing grandfather, Bill's peer faculty brat at the prep school and lifelong best friend Elaine, and, above all, Miss Frost, who opens his world through books, such as James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room".
His launch upon the world is like many an old-fashioned tale of explorers of unknown worlds. Beyond the wonderful story and cast of marvelous characters, Irving makes a valuable contribution by elucidating the unusual challenges of bisexuals. In an interview in Portland magazine, Irving notes that "The only part of 'bisexual' that most straight men get is the gay part. Many gay men distrust bisexual men. Gay guys of my generation often believed that bisexuals didn't really exist; they were usually presumed to be gay guys with one foot in the closet. And straight women trust bi guys even less than they trust straight guys. (A bi guy could leave you for another woman or for a guy.)"
Irving's love for his characters shines in "In One Person". The overall sympathy for the fate of his characters extends to the reader, whom he warns about future tragedies or impending big turns in events, such as losses from the AIDS epidemic. Bill's bravery in charting his life course is inspired beautifully by friendships with two transgender women.
Coming of age for Bill begins to veer in disturbing fashion by crushes on "the wrong people". These include a fellow private school student, who is a champion wrestler and actor in the town drama group, and older women such as the town librarian, Miss Frost. Despite the usual homophobic repression and antagonism from the small town society and many of Bill's family members, his vibrant spirit is supported by a special set of people. Prominent among these resources are a cross-dressing grandfather, Bill's peer faculty brat at the prep school and lifelong best friend Elaine, and, above all, Miss Frost, who opens his world through books, such as James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room".
His launch upon the world is like many an old-fashioned tale of explorers of unknown worlds. Beyond the wonderful story and cast of marvelous characters, Irving makes a valuable contribution by elucidating the unusual challenges of bisexuals. In an interview in Portland magazine, Irving notes that "The only part of 'bisexual' that most straight men get is the gay part. Many gay men distrust bisexual men. Gay guys of my generation often believed that bisexuals didn't really exist; they were usually presumed to be gay guys with one foot in the closet. And straight women trust bi guys even less than they trust straight guys. (A bi guy could leave you for another woman or for a guy.)"
Irving's love for his characters shines in "In One Person". The overall sympathy for the fate of his characters extends to the reader, whom he warns about future tragedies or impending big turns in events, such as losses from the AIDS epidemic. Bill's bravery in charting his life course is inspired beautifully by friendships with two transgender women.
October 8, 2021
I have to disagree with the few friends and people I follow on this one. Having read at least ten of Irving's books and loved most all of them, I was very much looking forward to this one. Big disappointment.
Not being familiar with all of Shakespeare's plays, I found the amateur plays performed under the tutilege of his stepfather (who he was also secretly crushing on), the machinations of the characters in such plays and the ongoing confusion of Billy's sexuality (lusting after 'small' breasts and men's posteriors), it was all a schnozzle to me. After months of stuggling with this one, I quit at 35%, my hopes of improvement finally gave out.
Not being familiar with all of Shakespeare's plays, I found the amateur plays performed under the tutilege of his stepfather (who he was also secretly crushing on), the machinations of the characters in such plays and the ongoing confusion of Billy's sexuality (lusting after 'small' breasts and men's posteriors), it was all a schnozzle to me. After months of stuggling with this one, I quit at 35%, my hopes of improvement finally gave out.
October 6, 2012
Let me preface this review by saying I am reading this book for my book club. And now let me say I would rather be reading anything but this book. Okay, perhaps not Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' but pretty much anything else.
Good golly, this book is tedious. Very. I don't care about the main character and the 'storyline' is meandering and boring. Literally counting down the pages and then I'll be giving this book away to the first taker. Anyone want it after this glowing review? It probably burns pretty well.
Update 10/6/12: Well, I just finished this book and I feel I need to add that although I didn't love it and I am very glad to have finished it, it was well-written, and that's why I gave it two stars. It's just not an uplifting or inspiring storyline.
Good golly, this book is tedious. Very. I don't care about the main character and the 'storyline' is meandering and boring. Literally counting down the pages and then I'll be giving this book away to the first taker. Anyone want it after this glowing review? It probably burns pretty well.
Update 10/6/12: Well, I just finished this book and I feel I need to add that although I didn't love it and I am very glad to have finished it, it was well-written, and that's why I gave it two stars. It's just not an uplifting or inspiring storyline.
July 2, 2012
This is a very John Irving John Irving book. He has elevated "write what you know" to an art form. There's a boy with a single mother and an absent father (see also Owen Meany, Garp). He grows up to be a writer (Garp). It's set in New England (Owen Meany, Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules, um, almost all of his books?) with a boys' boarding school (Hotel New Hampshire) and a trip to Vienna (Hotel New Hampshire). There's a grand old house (Hotel New Hampshire, Owen Meany) and a domineering grandmother (Owen Meany) and a jock older male relative (Hotel New Hampshire). There's a character whose every sentence is cried rather than spoken (Owen Meany). And of course, lots of wrestling.
That's just the physical resemblance. Stylistically, I was impressed as always by his ability to weave time backward and forward. Other familiarities grated a bit. With the time-weaving comes a certain amount of necessary reminder, but I thought he didn't trust his reader enough, and spelled out every conclusion even when the event being referenced was fresh in my mind. There were certain words and phrases that he italicized every time he used them, which also felt like it was meant to serve as a reminder to a neglectful reader. There were multiple characters with the same strange psychological affliction in which they could not pronounce certain words. Every character seemed to have a habit of discussing words separate from their meanings: multiple characters used the phrase "the _____ word," say "the table word" to differentiate from the actual table.
To address the subject matter, this is the story of one man's life, and specifically his sexual development as a bisexual man. It addresses Stonewall and Vietnam and AIDS, all through Billy Abbott's eyes. Irving has written GLBT characters before, but not as narrator (as far as I remember). Irving has done an interesting thing here. If this book had been a gay author's first novel, I think it would be filed under "gay fiction" and would not reach a mainstream audience. Irving has a particular bully pulpit. He has a chance to reach a mainstream audience that he has already inured to shock, and then see if they are actually inured. I only guess at his desire to shock because of the italics and the fact that most of the beats of the story concern sexual reveals. Or perhaps that is meant to be Billy's writing style, since Billy is a novelist himself.
The characters don't always ring true, which might also be a product of Billy's style rather than John Irving's.
I guess I appreciate the story he is trying to tell, even if I didn't love this book the way I loved some of his previous novels. I will say that I've never seen a book of mainstream fiction with this volume and variety of nuanced, sympathetic QUILTBAG characters. It almost felt like he was trying a little too hard.
That's just the physical resemblance. Stylistically, I was impressed as always by his ability to weave time backward and forward. Other familiarities grated a bit. With the time-weaving comes a certain amount of necessary reminder, but I thought he didn't trust his reader enough, and spelled out every conclusion even when the event being referenced was fresh in my mind. There were certain words and phrases that he italicized every time he used them, which also felt like it was meant to serve as a reminder to a neglectful reader. There were multiple characters with the same strange psychological affliction in which they could not pronounce certain words. Every character seemed to have a habit of discussing words separate from their meanings: multiple characters used the phrase "the _____ word," say "the table word" to differentiate from the actual table.
To address the subject matter, this is the story of one man's life, and specifically his sexual development as a bisexual man. It addresses Stonewall and Vietnam and AIDS, all through Billy Abbott's eyes. Irving has written GLBT characters before, but not as narrator (as far as I remember). Irving has done an interesting thing here. If this book had been a gay author's first novel, I think it would be filed under "gay fiction" and would not reach a mainstream audience. Irving has a particular bully pulpit. He has a chance to reach a mainstream audience that he has already inured to shock, and then see if they are actually inured. I only guess at his desire to shock because of the italics and the fact that most of the beats of the story concern sexual reveals. Or perhaps that is meant to be Billy's writing style, since Billy is a novelist himself.
The characters don't always ring true, which might also be a product of Billy's style rather than John Irving's.
I guess I appreciate the story he is trying to tell, even if I didn't love this book the way I loved some of his previous novels. I will say that I've never seen a book of mainstream fiction with this volume and variety of nuanced, sympathetic QUILTBAG characters. It almost felt like he was trying a little too hard.
April 19, 2014
This book seriously annoyed me. This review may make me seem somewhat fanatic, but once I get hung up on something in a book, that's it, I can't really let it go. The low rating for this book is based on one huge pet peeve of mine: authors not doing their research - combined with ridiculous stereotypes. Also, I might throw in "extremely unrealistic and weird-sounding dialogue", "unrealistic events Hollywood movie style" and "generally zero credibility". I never for a second while reading this book forgot that I was reading a book and that it was all "made up". That was pretty obvious.
BUT! Regardless of all those minor issues, from the very moment the Norwegian Nils Borkman appears on stage, this book was pretty much ruined for me. How many times does the author need to repeat that Nils is Norwegian or Scandinavian, and that he's depressed or suicidal? Now, he says that Nils' English is "clear but imperfect", and then more or less every time Nils has a line he makes these oh so quirky "foreign" mistakes, which, without fault, consists in mixing up the word order of composite words or adjectives + nouns. Every single time (well, except for when he says "mortally mere" instead of "merely mortal" or "something saying" instead of "saying something", which are also mistakes that make little sense to make for a Scandinavian). That is apparently the only issue this foreigner has with the English language. He takes a composite word - all of them, basically - and switches the order of the words around. Hah, hilarious! Because Norwegian is not a language closely related to English with those same goddamned words with the same goddamned order in them? Those are not mistakes a Norwegian would make. Seriously, if you, as an author, are going to make this a major character trait of a character, then do some research. "Time next" instead of "next time" when Norwegian has the exact same word order (ALWAYS). Or how about "stereo sex-types" when in Norwegian, it's "seksuelle stereotyper". Not very different. Every single time there was a scene with Nils, I just waited for his obligatory mistake and got equally annoyed every time they appeared and were as stupid as the last one.
After reading this book, I will never, ever use the expression "It suffices to say" again (it appears 6 times!). I may also never read another Irving book, even though I loved The world according to Garp.
BUT! Regardless of all those minor issues, from the very moment the Norwegian Nils Borkman appears on stage, this book was pretty much ruined for me. How many times does the author need to repeat that Nils is Norwegian or Scandinavian, and that he's depressed or suicidal? Now, he says that Nils' English is "clear but imperfect", and then more or less every time Nils has a line he makes these oh so quirky "foreign" mistakes, which, without fault, consists in mixing up the word order of composite words or adjectives + nouns. Every single time (well, except for when he says "mortally mere" instead of "merely mortal" or "something saying" instead of "saying something", which are also mistakes that make little sense to make for a Scandinavian). That is apparently the only issue this foreigner has with the English language. He takes a composite word - all of them, basically - and switches the order of the words around. Hah, hilarious! Because Norwegian is not a language closely related to English with those same goddamned words with the same goddamned order in them? Those are not mistakes a Norwegian would make. Seriously, if you, as an author, are going to make this a major character trait of a character, then do some research. "Time next" instead of "next time" when Norwegian has the exact same word order (ALWAYS). Or how about "stereo sex-types" when in Norwegian, it's "seksuelle stereotyper". Not very different. Every single time there was a scene with Nils, I just waited for his obligatory mistake and got equally annoyed every time they appeared and were as stupid as the last one.
After reading this book, I will never, ever use the expression "It suffices to say" again (it appears 6 times!). I may also never read another Irving book, even though I loved The world according to Garp.
January 5, 2014
3stars......some very funny and poignant bits but also rather preachy and self indulgent.....I miss the outstanding qualities that were in a prayer for Owen meaney and a son of the circus
August 1, 2020
This book started off strong, but ultimately was dissatisfying. It was really fun to read, but I have to admit that there were plenty of parts where I was saying to myself, "WHAT?? That doesn't make sense!"
First of all, much of the structure of the book is related to our narrator Bill's inability to say words that made him uncomfortable. Sometimes the words were something like "penis," but other times, it was a word like "shadow." Fine. That's interesting and unusual. Most people's speech impediment is not based upon individual words they cannot say, so this is an interesting defining character bit. But, in this book, at least TWO OTHER CHARACTERS DO THE SAME THING. I mean, WHAT?? Tom, who goes to his same high school with him, can't say "time"?? Then there are some kids later when he's an adult who also can't say random words? I'm sorry, no. That does not work for me. Also, every time I read Irving write "the ________ word" I wanted to be like, "YOU THINK YOU CLEVER BIATCH?" OK, that's an overreaction. But why did Bill have to always call words "the time word" or "the penis word." Never once does he say, "the word time" or "the word penis." It bugged me.
Also, MAN OH MAN did Bill know a lot of trans women in his small-town youth. I mean, come on. EVERYONE turned out to be gay or transgender. Now, I know, a lot of people are gay or transgender. But it was too much damn coincidence. It struck me as pure absurdity. You know what else? Some gay men didn't die of AIDS in the 80's. I swear. Many survived, uninfected. But you wouldn't know that from this book.
But, also, I basically enjoyed the book. I liked how Bill and Elaine had a Truman Capote/Harper Lee thing going on. Bill narrates that Elaine, despite constantly writing, had only written one book, which he believed was better than any of his own books. Sounds like Harper Lee, right? Also, it's a really great book for opening minds about male bisexuality. If you listen to as many Savage Lovecasts as I do, you know that there is a lot of suspicion about the actual existence of bisexual men -- people think they're gay but not willing to let go of their ability to pass as straight. But this book gives decent insight into how a man can have attractions that vary, honestly. That's a worthwhile public service. It was a pretty entertaining book, even if it didn't always make a hell of a lot of sense. There are certainly worse books to invest your time in reading.
First of all, much of the structure of the book is related to our narrator Bill's inability to say words that made him uncomfortable. Sometimes the words were something like "penis," but other times, it was a word like "shadow." Fine. That's interesting and unusual. Most people's speech impediment is not based upon individual words they cannot say, so this is an interesting defining character bit. But, in this book, at least TWO OTHER CHARACTERS DO THE SAME THING. I mean, WHAT?? Tom, who goes to his same high school with him, can't say "time"?? Then there are some kids later when he's an adult who also can't say random words? I'm sorry, no. That does not work for me. Also, every time I read Irving write "the ________ word" I wanted to be like, "YOU THINK YOU CLEVER BIATCH?" OK, that's an overreaction. But why did Bill have to always call words "the time word" or "the penis word." Never once does he say, "the word time" or "the word penis." It bugged me.
Also, MAN OH MAN did Bill know a lot of trans women in his small-town youth. I mean, come on. EVERYONE turned out to be gay or transgender. Now, I know, a lot of people are gay or transgender. But it was too much damn coincidence. It struck me as pure absurdity. You know what else? Some gay men didn't die of AIDS in the 80's. I swear. Many survived, uninfected. But you wouldn't know that from this book.
But, also, I basically enjoyed the book. I liked how Bill and Elaine had a Truman Capote/Harper Lee thing going on. Bill narrates that Elaine, despite constantly writing, had only written one book, which he believed was better than any of his own books. Sounds like Harper Lee, right? Also, it's a really great book for opening minds about male bisexuality. If you listen to as many Savage Lovecasts as I do, you know that there is a lot of suspicion about the actual existence of bisexual men -- people think they're gay but not willing to let go of their ability to pass as straight. But this book gives decent insight into how a man can have attractions that vary, honestly. That's a worthwhile public service. It was a pretty entertaining book, even if it didn't always make a hell of a lot of sense. There are certainly worse books to invest your time in reading.
May 30, 2012
John Irving's newest novel has a strong voice. It reads like a memoir. I'm having a difficult time reviewing this book, though I've been reading it for almost two weeks. It feels like four. This is not a good sign.
There were several characters who shape Bill Abbot, the protagonist, but not the hero. This epic begins when Bill is a child and follows him until he is almost seventy, but not in a linear fashion. Bill's lfe journey takes him from Vermont to N. Y. to San Francisco to Europe and finally back to Vermont.
Bill's family, like most families, is complex, quirky, but in the end accepting and loving. I guess Bill is trying to find himself. This is difficult for heterosexuals. I imagine homosexuals, bi sexuals and transexuals have more issues.
I think that my problem with In One Person is that most of Bill's friends and family members also have many difficulties establishing who they are. Many of them struggle with their dishonest choices and AIDs. Bill decides who he is and lives as a bi sexual openly in early adolesence. He has many partners and several lovers. He becomes a successful writer. He looses many of frinds and lovers to AIDs. In fact, as he and Elaine (friend/lover) tend their dying friends, I was very affected. Yet the wrestling coach has taught Bill one good move, the "duck under." Bill buries at least five friends, but he is able to duck under the disease.
Finally Bill returns to "change" life at Famous River and Gee and her classmates. This part reminded me of Mr. Holland's Opus. I thought the ending was sacharrine. Thinking about the whole book, the word false comes to mind. I think Irving wrestled with this book more than Bill struggled with his life. Irving, because of his past successes was able to publish and sell In One Person. I think his one good move, the "duck under" will not be able to save this book.
There were several characters who shape Bill Abbot, the protagonist, but not the hero. This epic begins when Bill is a child and follows him until he is almost seventy, but not in a linear fashion. Bill's lfe journey takes him from Vermont to N. Y. to San Francisco to Europe and finally back to Vermont.
Bill's family, like most families, is complex, quirky, but in the end accepting and loving. I guess Bill is trying to find himself. This is difficult for heterosexuals. I imagine homosexuals, bi sexuals and transexuals have more issues.
I think that my problem with In One Person is that most of Bill's friends and family members also have many difficulties establishing who they are. Many of them struggle with their dishonest choices and AIDs. Bill decides who he is and lives as a bi sexual openly in early adolesence. He has many partners and several lovers. He becomes a successful writer. He looses many of frinds and lovers to AIDs. In fact, as he and Elaine (friend/lover) tend their dying friends, I was very affected. Yet the wrestling coach has taught Bill one good move, the "duck under." Bill buries at least five friends, but he is able to duck under the disease.
Finally Bill returns to "change" life at Famous River and Gee and her classmates. This part reminded me of Mr. Holland's Opus. I thought the ending was sacharrine. Thinking about the whole book, the word false comes to mind. I think Irving wrestled with this book more than Bill struggled with his life. Irving, because of his past successes was able to publish and sell In One Person. I think his one good move, the "duck under" will not be able to save this book.
September 14, 2012
I'd rate this book 3.75! Why not more 'stars'....(when I love John Irving)?
1) I'd be a little selective to whom I'd 'suggest/recommend' this book to.
2) Things I enjoyed about this novel ---I enjoyed a lot --
Yet...I was a little bored in some parts of the book.
By the time I was about 50% into reading "In One Person"...
I had mixed feelings--
Was this book to be 'funny'? or shocking? (I was fully engaged, yet unclear yet how I felt!) If it was suppose to be shocking ---I 'would' have been bored. I don't shock easy.
However, I was asking myself the WRONG question!
This novel 'was' funny at times (none of it shocking to me: but it might be for some people).
I live in the Bay area. I've been to the Gay Parade: (I'm a straight woman). I have friends who are gay, cross dressers, (on stage and off stage), Bi Sexual, and transgendered.
I understand the theory 'sex is sex' (however, shall we talk human emotions?) ....oops....(another book)
I'm clear about tolerance of sexual differences (between adults) ----This book was slowly driving home THIS POINT throughout the novel.
....(for which I 'could' have been bored). I know, I know, I know...I agree, I agree, I agree........
but here are a other things I loved about this story:
1) The way in which John Irving handled the 'time-history' of the Aids epidemic (I lived through this period....watched friends die myself). This was a beautiful-tender-heartfelt part of the book. (very touching...even allowed me to look back and think about ---really think about the growth --lack of understanding, etc. back in the 'heart' of the epidemic of AIDS. [note: our daughter grew up in adult professional theater ---and she too --at the age of 7, had lost a close director/coach/mentor friend to death from Aids. He had a 'good-bye-park' party for his friends and family ---theater friends ...etc. (Hard to believe so much time has passed)
Yeah....overall, I liked this book! John Irving is fabulous. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "Cider House Rules" are still my two favorites. (I like "Last Night in Twisted River" a lot, also) ----Actually 'all' the Irving books I've read have been worth it to me.... (but I suppose Irving is not for everyone).
2) Many funny lines: ("why are bras called 'training' bras anyway'"?), What are they 'training'?
I was invested in the characters,
I enjoyed a little community theater,
And.... 'talk' about sexual identity is never a 'bad-thing'. (even if we think we are a smart-ass-60 year old Bay Area know it all)....lol
I personally think the book got BETTER after the first 50% ...(I was able to feel the deeper importance of writing this book NOW in 2012 ---and I began to let go of my righteous- know-all...as I already 'know' everything here).
Irving touched me.... I looked 'deeper'....'felt deeper'.
The end message of this story: "Don't Put a Label on me".
1) I'd be a little selective to whom I'd 'suggest/recommend' this book to.
2) Things I enjoyed about this novel ---I enjoyed a lot --
Yet...I was a little bored in some parts of the book.
By the time I was about 50% into reading "In One Person"...
I had mixed feelings--
Was this book to be 'funny'? or shocking? (I was fully engaged, yet unclear yet how I felt!) If it was suppose to be shocking ---I 'would' have been bored. I don't shock easy.
However, I was asking myself the WRONG question!
This novel 'was' funny at times (none of it shocking to me: but it might be for some people).
I live in the Bay area. I've been to the Gay Parade: (I'm a straight woman). I have friends who are gay, cross dressers, (on stage and off stage), Bi Sexual, and transgendered.
I understand the theory 'sex is sex' (however, shall we talk human emotions?) ....oops....(another book)
I'm clear about tolerance of sexual differences (between adults) ----This book was slowly driving home THIS POINT throughout the novel.
....(for which I 'could' have been bored). I know, I know, I know...I agree, I agree, I agree........
but here are a other things I loved about this story:
1) The way in which John Irving handled the 'time-history' of the Aids epidemic (I lived through this period....watched friends die myself). This was a beautiful-tender-heartfelt part of the book. (very touching...even allowed me to look back and think about ---really think about the growth --lack of understanding, etc. back in the 'heart' of the epidemic of AIDS. [note: our daughter grew up in adult professional theater ---and she too --at the age of 7, had lost a close director/coach/mentor friend to death from Aids. He had a 'good-bye-park' party for his friends and family ---theater friends ...etc. (Hard to believe so much time has passed)
Yeah....overall, I liked this book! John Irving is fabulous. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "Cider House Rules" are still my two favorites. (I like "Last Night in Twisted River" a lot, also) ----Actually 'all' the Irving books I've read have been worth it to me.... (but I suppose Irving is not for everyone).
2) Many funny lines: ("why are bras called 'training' bras anyway'"?), What are they 'training'?
I was invested in the characters,
I enjoyed a little community theater,
And.... 'talk' about sexual identity is never a 'bad-thing'. (even if we think we are a smart-ass-60 year old Bay Area know it all)....lol
I personally think the book got BETTER after the first 50% ...(I was able to feel the deeper importance of writing this book NOW in 2012 ---and I began to let go of my righteous- know-all...as I already 'know' everything here).
Irving touched me.... I looked 'deeper'....'felt deeper'.
The end message of this story: "Don't Put a Label on me".
February 13, 2021
A John Irving novel is always worthwhile reading. Always. But sometimes they could have been better, and such is the case with 'In One Person.' The first 150 pages or so of William Abbot's life appear to roll off his skin harmlessly. He isn't upset enough, in my opinion.
There are a number of dramatic and traumatic events related (in fact, the feeling of this being autobiographical is overwhelming, but I have no idea if that has any basis), and although there is nothing which occurs that is horrific or full of searing loss, still, the schoolboy William handles crossdressing, an emotionally fragile and unsupportive mother, the bullying of an all-boys prep school, his burgeoning bisexuality, a father missing since before his birth, small-town whispers - all with concerned mild interest. He has plenty of support from uncles, step-father, teachers and friends, but the confusions should have left him struggling a bit more than he does.
As I read on, all of the tones improve to some degree, but it never was quite right. I felt it was a major problem and I almost gave this good book three stars because of that. Why I am giving it four stars instead is that by the last quarter of the novel I loved this character and his friends, as well as the extreme delight I had in discovering its metafictional construction.
Suggested reading: Shakespeare's play 'King Lear', which is about two daughters who viciously and heartlessly sideline their father, the king, after he signs over his power to reign over his kingdom to them. Lear's agonies over their betrayal of his love and affection are a legendary theme, as well as the women's contrived love for their father. At the same time Lear ignores those who have true affection for him, even punishing them despite their REAL love for him. Also, I recommend Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', which again, is about family betrayal, roles, identity, appearances and reality.
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/kingl...
http://classiclit.about.com/od/tempes...
Irving's book is so cleverly written to ghost the main themes behind the play 'King Lear' and 'The Tempest' the reader hasn't a clue that that's what is being used as a backdrop, except for the acting that is a hobby in Abbot's family and the play 'King Lear' and 'The Tempest' being the plays most avidly discussed by Abbot's friends and family. The themes of Appearance and Reality with all of its permutations are thoroughly brought stage center throughout the book. It's a hoot, actually. The argument over what parts family members should be assigned had me giggling. Lear's son! Nymph!
I want a Grandpa Harry!
Recommended: say 'penith' out loud. Stop. Where is your tongue? It should be sticking out. Hehe!
The best review is: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I wish I wrote that. Instead, the above is what I got. ; P
There are a number of dramatic and traumatic events related (in fact, the feeling of this being autobiographical is overwhelming, but I have no idea if that has any basis), and although there is nothing which occurs that is horrific or full of searing loss, still, the schoolboy William handles crossdressing, an emotionally fragile and unsupportive mother, the bullying of an all-boys prep school, his burgeoning bisexuality, a father missing since before his birth, small-town whispers - all with concerned mild interest. He has plenty of support from uncles, step-father, teachers and friends, but the confusions should have left him struggling a bit more than he does.
As I read on, all of the tones improve to some degree, but it never was quite right. I felt it was a major problem and I almost gave this good book three stars because of that. Why I am giving it four stars instead is that by the last quarter of the novel I loved this character and his friends, as well as the extreme delight I had in discovering its metafictional construction.
Suggested reading: Shakespeare's play 'King Lear', which is about two daughters who viciously and heartlessly sideline their father, the king, after he signs over his power to reign over his kingdom to them. Lear's agonies over their betrayal of his love and affection are a legendary theme, as well as the women's contrived love for their father. At the same time Lear ignores those who have true affection for him, even punishing them despite their REAL love for him. Also, I recommend Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', which again, is about family betrayal, roles, identity, appearances and reality.
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/kingl...
http://classiclit.about.com/od/tempes...
Irving's book is so cleverly written to ghost the main themes behind the play 'King Lear' and 'The Tempest' the reader hasn't a clue that that's what is being used as a backdrop, except for the acting that is a hobby in Abbot's family and the play 'King Lear' and 'The Tempest' being the plays most avidly discussed by Abbot's friends and family. The themes of Appearance and Reality with all of its permutations are thoroughly brought stage center throughout the book. It's a hoot, actually. The argument over what parts family members should be assigned had me giggling. Lear's son! Nymph!
I want a Grandpa Harry!
Recommended: say 'penith' out loud. Stop. Where is your tongue? It should be sticking out. Hehe!
The best review is: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I wish I wrote that. Instead, the above is what I got. ; P
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