chicks review:
A Widow for One Year

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A Widow for One Year John Irving PB list price $14.95 Ballantine Books (April 1999) ISBN: 0345424719 537 pages average review: This gets: a from eryka: I had a phase where I read almost all of John Irving's early works. They all involved bears, Vienna, wife swapping and other stuff I was too young to appreciate, so I stopped reading him. Then I picked this one up and I loved it. I especially liked the passage where the "authorial voice" peeks through and defends himself for having repeating themes in his works. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought his work was a tad bit redundant... From the back cover: Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason. A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She's about to fall in love for the first time. Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief. eryka.com scale: So good you just can't stand it. Almost that good. Sort of good. Generally a waste of time. Destined for the recycler. If you'd like to review this book, or another, click here Similar books by category: american fiction Go home | Go to reviews home © 2002 eryka.com. All rights reserved.