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Widow for One Year, a
 
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Widow for One Year, a (Hardcover)

by John Irving (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (264 customer reviews)
Price: CDN$ 30.83 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
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Product Details

Product Description

From Amazon.com

John Irving fans will not be startled to find that A Widow for One Year is a sprawling farce-tragedy crawling with characters who are writers. In the opening scene, 4-year-old Ruth Cole walks in on her melancholy mother, Marion, who is in flagrante with 16-year-old Eddie, the driver for drunken Ted (Ruth's dad and Marion's estranged, womanizing husband).

Eddie spends the rest of his life obsessively writing novels like Sixty Times, his roman à clef about his 60 seductions by Marion. Ted is a failed novelist who gets rich and famous writing creepy children's stories based on tales he tells Ruth (such as The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls). Marion abandons Ruth, Ted, and Eddie and becomes a successful pseudonymous novelist. And Ruth becomes the most richly celebrated writer of them all because of her early training by Ted, who not only told her stories, but also helped her craft narratives to explain their home's many photographs of her brothers, who died in a gory car wreck the year before she was born. Grief over the boys is why Ruth's mother does not dare to love her.

Ruth, Irving's first female main character, works brilliantly, first as an imaginative, almost Salingeresque child coming to terms with her bewildering family, then as a grownup striving to understand her mother's motives--or at least to track her down. Ted is a mordantly funny caricature, interestingly sinister and plausibly self-justifying when most inexcusable. Eddie is a lovable schlemiel, yet not too sentimentally drawn. And what set pieces Irving can write! The story of the boys' death is horrific and effective in dramatizing the character of Ted, who narrates it. Ted's attempted murder by a spurned lover is as hilarious as the VW-down-the-marble-stairway scene in A Prayer for Owen Meany (which has been adapted by Disney Studios), though not quite on a par with the celebrated "Pension Grillparzer" episode in The World According to Garp (reissued in a 20th anniversary edition by Modern Library).

Irving has the effrontery to get away with practically any scene that comes into his head--Ruth winds up an eyewitness to a hooker's murder in Amsterdam, a Dutch detective starts tracking her down (just as Ruth is hunting Marion), and the multiple plot strands all converge in a finale that neatly echoes the opening scene. It's all done with the outrageously coincidental yet minutely realistic brio of Charles Dickens, with a sad, self-conscious jokiness like that of Irving's mentor, Kurt Vonnegut. --Tim Appelo



From Library Journal

"In the world according to Garp, we're all terminal cases." This sentence ends both Irving's comic and tragic novel and its wonderful audio adaptation, read disarmingly by Michael Prichard. We hear the familiar story of T.S. Garp; his mother, Jenny Fields; and Garp's wife, family, friends, and lovers. We also see Garp's efforts to establish himself as a serious author and his involvement in sexual politics. In contrast, Jenny's memoirs establish her as a feminist leader. This work is funny, sexual, serious, and sad. Prichard's narration adds a wonderful dimension to the story. Plus, Irving opens with a terrific introduction to mark the novel's 20th anniversary. This wise and unique tale is as fresh today as it was when first published in 1978. Obviously, a required purchase for all audio collections and required listening for all Irving fans. Irving's (A Son of the Circus, Audio Reviews, LJ 12/94) new novel echoes Garp through tracing the complicated life of novelist Ruth Cole. Divided into three parts, the book views Ruth's life and relationships at age four in 1958, age 36 in 1990, and age 41 in 1995. In the first part, Ruth's mother, devastated by the loss of two sons, leaves her daughter and womanizing husband after a brief love affair with a teenage boy. Part 2 focuses on Ruth's book tour in Europe while coming to grips with a poor love life and considering marriage to an older man. Part 3 traces Ruth's short widowhood and her marriage to the Dutch policeman who solves the murder to which she was a witness. Like Garp, this is a complex, sad, and quite compelling tale. Narrator George Guidall's reading adds to the texture of the story. And like the audio adaptation of Garp, this wonderful novel is a required purchase for all audio collections.?Stephen L. Hupp, Univ. of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Lib., PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews

264 Reviews
5 star:
 (89)
4 star:
 (69)
3 star:
 (34)
2 star:
 (35)
1 star:
 (37)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (264 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that changed my outlook on life, Feb 2 2005
By A Customer
This review is from: A Widow for One Year (Paperback)
This book is for sure an intellectual read as well as hilarious. The characters of Eddie and Hannah (especially their trip together stuck in a car) always made me laugh. An exciting read as well as interesting! It really is a certain type of book for a certain type of person. If you are very proper, don't read this book!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Irving's wise Widow., April 17 2004
By G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Widow for One Year (Hardcover)
John Irving's 537-page novel tells the emotionally compelling story of its "melancholic main character" (p. 389), Ruth Cole, in three parts. The novel opens in 1958, when 4-year-old Ruth interrupts her 39-year-old mother, Marion Cole, having sex with a 16-year-old boy, Eddie O'Hare. It was a "sad time" (p. 54) in her parents' marriage. While the Coles suffer through the psychological impact of losing their two sons in an automobile accident, Eddie is unaware that he has been specifically hired by Marion's alcoholic husband, Ted, for the purpose of becoming Marion's lover for the summer, and that "it would have lifelong results" (p. 8) for all four characters. The Coles' personal tragedy first leads Marion to abandon her womanizing husband and infant daughter, and eventually leads Ted to commit suicide. Not surprisingly, Part Two of Irving's novel finds Ruth at age 36 attempting to cope with the emotional baggage from her childhood misfortunes, and Eddie at age 48 still longing for Marion. By 1990, both Ruth and Eddie have become established writers. However, it is not until 1995 and Part Three when, at age 41, Ruth is able to escape the depths of her lifelong misery by discovering love, and at age 53, when Eddie is finally able to confront his lifelong connection with Marion. Although Irving treats sexuality rather frankly throughout his unforgettable novel, ultimately his novel transcends the sexual realm and becomes a story about surviving personal misfortune and experiencing the healing powers of love. Irving brings his characters to life in a well-drawn story. It won't take a year--but more likely less than a week--for serious readers to discover the real wisdom in Irving's WIDOW.

G. Merritt

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5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite John Irving novel!, Mar 26 2004
By CoffeeGurl (MA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: A Widow for One Year: A Novel (Paperback)
A Widow for One Year has become my favorite John Irving novel. Many of his other works, while enjoyable, have put me off a little because the characters and plot are a bit over the top. This offering, while imaginative and entertaining, never gets to that stage. It's a big novel, spanning about forty years and has a satisfying, yet never hokey or corny ending. The characters, of course, are a bit quirky in their way, but said quirkiness is somehow more believable than in Irving's other novels. The story is a lot of fun and, because most of the characters are writers, allows Irving to explain and comment on the writing process. I sometimes felt he was answering his own critics while discussing the criticism of his character-writers. However, he has fun with the whole thing and never takes it too seriously, which is part of what makes this novel fun and enthralling. A Widow for One Year is a human story about loss and how far some of us would go for love. Highly recommended...
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars If You Liked the BOOK...
Keep an Eye out for The Motion Picture, Titled "A Door In The Floor",currently in Production,Starring Jeff Bridges..No release date set yet,as of May 2003.
Published on May 24 2003 by Jim Carpenter

1.0 out of 5 stars I advice Irving and his readers to read some real literature
This is my first John Irving book, and even if it's not rated as his best one, I won't burn my fingers on another one. Read more
Published on April 29 2003 by Dwash

5.0 out of 5 stars Irving speaks to his readers
My take on this book is that Irving is speaking to us via the main character, Ruth Cole. She reminds us in many instances that an author is not to be so easily judged by what... Read more
Published on Nov 13 2002

2.0 out of 5 stars Sadly disappointing...........
I was recommended this book by a close friend, who is an avid reader of "titillating" books, and she mentioned that this one had a definite erotic edge. Read more
Published on Jul 16 2002

1.0 out of 5 stars Irving at his worst
After reading Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany (one of the best books I have EVER read), Widow for One Year was completely dissapointing. Read more
Published on Jun 21 2002

2.0 out of 5 stars How interesting to condense so many stories into one novel..
Why, why, why Mr. Irving would you write in such vivid detail about one summer and then scurry through the next forty years? Read more
Published on May 9 2002 by Cindi Getek

2.0 out of 5 stars A Widow for One Year
This book captured my attention at the beginning, and promised to deliver an interesting story of a dysfunctional family and the strange cast of characters involved in their... Read more
Published on April 28 2002 by Kirstin G. Larson

4.0 out of 5 stars Brialliantly read, an unbelievable story made real
I noted that other reviewers loved or hated this book. It is long, but paints picture in the mind's eye worth seeing. Read more
Published on April 18 2002 by L. Look

5.0 out of 5 stars There's Nothing Better than a Good Book
I threw down Franzen's The Connections and Delillo's Underworld in disgust, after an hour's hard effort each. Read more
Published on April 9 2002 by Arline Curtiss

5.0 out of 5 stars great story brought full circle in classic Irving style
A Widow for One Year is John Irving at his best. The story trails Ruth at three different stages in her life: as a 4 year old, a young woman, and a fortysomething. Read more
Published on April 7 2002 by Saima Huq

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