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Look Inside | Reading Guide
Reading Guide
Jun 23, 1997 | ISBN 9780345417961 Buy
May 15, 2018 | ISBN 9781984800091 Buy
Buy from Other Retailers:
Jun 23, 1997 | ISBN 9780345417961
May 15, 2018 | ISBN 9781984800091
“Irving looks cunningly beyond the eye-catching gyrations of the mating dance to the morning-after implications.”—The Washington Post The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this sensual, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp; but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author’s generally robust, boisterous style. Though Mr. Irving’s cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other; but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive.“One of the most remarkable things about John Irving’s first three novels, viewed from the vantage of The World According to Garp, is that they can be read as one extended fictional enterprise. . . . The 158-Pound Marriage is as lean and concentrated as a mine shaft.”—Terrence Des Pres“Deft, hard-hitting . . . What Irving demonstrates beautifully is that a one-to-one relationship is more demanding than a free-for-all.”—The New York Times Book Review
JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven…. More about John Irving
“Irving looks cunningly beyond the eye-catching gyrations of the mating dance to the morning-after implications.”—The Washington Post“One of the most remarkable things about John Irving’s first three novels, viewed from the vantage of The World According to Garp, is that they can be read as one extended fictional enterprise. . . . The 158-Pound Marriage is as lean and concentrated as a mine shaft.”—Terrence Des Pres“Deft, hard-hitting . . . What Irving demonstrates beautifully is that a one-to-one relationship is more demanding than a free-for-all.”—The New York Times Book Review
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