| | |  | | Home » Last Night in Twisted River: A Novel | | | | | | | Description: | | In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County–to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto–pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them.
In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River–John Irving’s twelfth novel–depicts the recent half-century in the United States as “a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.” From the novel’s taut opening sentence–“The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long”–to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving’s breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp.
What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author’s unmistakable voice–the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: “We don’t always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly–as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth–the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.” | | | Features: | |
• SIGNED/AUTOGRAPHED by author, First Edition, very good almost like new condition,
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| John Irving | | Hardcover:
| 576 pages | | Publisher:
| Random House | | Publication Date:
| October 27, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1400063841 | | Product Length:
| 6.58 inches | | Product Width:
| 1.37 inches | | Product Height:
| 9.52 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.88 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.1 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.5 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 259 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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232 of 246 found the following review helpful:
 Welcome Back, John Irving!Sep 29, 2009
By David Zimmerman
After a three novel fixation on sex both domestic and abroad, John Irving makes a triumphant return to the literary landscape of The World According to Garp (Modern Library) in his twelfth novel, "Last Night in Twisted River". Father Dominic Baciagalupo, a cook for a logging community, and his son Daniel are co-protagonists in a story about manhood, family, love, friendship, a whole lot of cooking, and of course sex (though the sexual exploits of the characters don't overwhelm the story). At first it's the world of logging that pulls you into the story, much as the waters of Twisted River pull young logger Angel Pope into an early death in the novel's first sentence.
The first section of the book, set in the 1950s in the far north of New Hampshire, is absolutely captivating. As with Irving's early novels, a bear plays an important and almost mythical role. The middle section follows Dominic and now writer Danny in an odyssey brought about by their last night in Twisted River, the events of which cause them to vacate the logging town. Unrepentant logger Ketchum, who remains in the woods, plays a significant role in both lives, despite trying to keep his distance. Like TS Garp, Danny becomes a novelist. In the last half of the book the writer struggles with the tragedies of his life - both accidental ("it's a world of accidents", warns his father) and arranged (despite the best efforts of the ever-vigilant Ketchum) - and with crafting novels, striking a balance between the autobiographical and the imagination. Again, the result sweeps you along in its current.
It's not quite a perfect novel - the middle section is a bit choppy as Irving moves back and forth in time in the lives of both Dominic and Danny, but the beginning and last third are so good that you'll forgive any minor structural flaws. As a benefit, you'll also pick up a few Italian cooking recipes along the way and perhaps embark on a search for the perfect pizza.
In my review of Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone: A novel, I stated that the protege had outwritten the master. With "Last Night in Twisted River", the master has come back strong.
If novels like "The Fourth Hand" and "Until I Find You" put you off of Irving, come back for "Twisted River". You'll be glad you did.
162 of 190 found the following review helpful:
 Too Much of the SameOct 05, 2009
By Mary Lins
Some John Irving books I have loved and immediately devoured, and others I haven't been able to get past page 50 on...so as much as I look forward to a new Irving novel, I'm never sure which type it will be. With "Last Night in Twisted River" I took a deep breath and dove in...and I made it half-way before I started skimming; it's just too much of the same old thing.
The main characters are father and son, Dominic and Danny Baciagalupo, who begin in a logging camp (Dominic is the cook) and flee to Boston when "something bad happens". If you've read John Irving before, you know that the "something bads" that he details (and I mean DETAILS) are never run-of-the-mill accidents or incidents. His plot lines are full of freak-of-nature occurrences and amazing coincidences. Irving actually self-parodies in this novel regularly, as he described Danny's burgeoning writing career. As an example he (as the omniscient narrator) states: "...in any novel written with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences." Again making fun of himself he writes: "...extreme details were mere indulgences the more mature writer would one day outgrow." Ha.
Present here, as with all Irving novels, you have several thoroughly researched and detailed accounts of setting and industry, such as the descriptions of the logging process in the 1950s, the workings of a logging camp, pizza making....
Also ever-present are some familiar Irving symbols such as the severed limbs, bears, older women sexually initiating boys too young, abortion, freak accidents, shallow women characters.
As in many of Irving's novels, there are clear autobiographical comparisons between Irving himself and the character of Danny, such as Exeter Academy, avoiding conscription to Vietnam due to marriage and child, and Danny having Kurt Vonnegut as a mentor as Irving himself did. Best not to read TOO much as autobiographical, though, since Danny's novels are also deceptive in that way.
Die hard Irving fans will not be disappointed, but I was looking for a little something different.
27 of 29 found the following review helpful:
A very frustrating readDec 10, 2009
By Decal
I've read most if not all of John Irving's novels, and some of this book was really, really good. That's what makes this so frustrating. The main narrative kept getting bumped aside for long, self-indulgent rants on being a writer (a famous writer at that) which really made me want to put the book down and walk away. And, in typical Irving fashion, he spends a lot of pages trying to fit in a long winded political discussion that has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot. In some books, like A Prayer for Owen Meany, I could put up with all the tangents because the end result was brilliant. This time around, I'm not sure it was worth it.
131 of 158 found the following review helpful:
John Irving in Top FormAug 26, 2009
By Smytheville
True fans of John Irving will applaud this victory lap as the one-time wunderkind of contemporary literature comfortably enfolds himself in the mantle of elder statesman, having fun with his fans and critics along the way. Longtime Irving followers will enjoy seeing how he echoes past themes and trajectory of his own career in telling the story of Daniel Baciagalupo, aka Danny Angel, a novelist who scoffs at the media obsession with sorting the autobiographical elements of his fiction from that parts "that were `merely' made up." But yes, here's a fictional character who had much the same academic career as Irving (wrestling, prep school, university, Iowa Writer's Workshop, teaching venue), achieved bestsellerdom and prosperity with his fourth novel, tackled explosive political issues like abortion in his subsequent novels, got involved in movies, lived part-time in Canada, and so on. Part of the fun for fans is seeing how he departs from these familiar elements of his career and his fiction. The ominous "undertoad" from The World According to Garp is recast here as a blue Mustang automobile. The bears that figured so prominently in early Irving novels are waiting in the wings here, but left waiting as offstage characters only. Onstage, however, the key character of Injun Jane is cast in a scene that brought to mind one with Susie the Bear from The Hotel New Hampshire, although here the consequences kick the novel into high gear. The novel unfolds more deliberately than fans of earlier works may remember or prefer, dangling meaty morsels of plot but then diverting and eventually circling back later to fill in the blanks. The slower pace adds to the richness of the experience, though, and Irving's trademark vivid characters, earthy dialog, and baroque plot twists do not disappoint. And the book has a gorgeous structure, with an end that leads right back to the beginning. With Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving's work has mellowed and ripened from a major vintage to a classic one, something to be savored.
30 of 34 found the following review helpful:
Dear JohnFeb 01, 2010
By BJ Fraser
(This is going to get creepy, but bear with me. May contain spoilers. You've been warned.)
Dear John:
This is hard for me to say because I love you. Not as a person as we've never met. I love you as a writer and a reader. Your book "The Cider House Rules" made me want to be a "serious" writer. I loved the intricate plots and memorable characters; I hoped to someday do something just as well. Maybe I didn't love the semicolon as much as you obviously did, or wrestling or Vienna or Exeter in its many forms, but part of love is overlooking faults, seeing only what we want to see.
It was in reading "Until I Find You" that I knew something was wrong. It just didn't make me feel the same as "Cider House Rules" or "World According to Garp." The story seemed like a jumbled mess, the plot elements borrowed from previous novels, and the characters unmemorable. When you kept describing Jack's "little guy" it got to the point where I almost couldn't finish. But I did in the vain hope it would get better. It didn't. This failure left me shaken. I said in my Amazon review that it was probably time to hang it up, mostly to spare me the grief of having to go through another experience like this again, one that might taint your considerable legacy.
When I heard about "Last Night In Twisted River" I felt a mixture of hope and dread. Hope that maybe you'd exorcized your personal demons with "Until I Find You" and now the magic could return. Dread that "Until I Find You" wasn't an aberration. I received my copy of the book in November, but I put off starting it for another two months because of this trepidation.
It didn't take long for my fears to be validated. I nearly fell asleep trying to read the first 50 pages of jumbled background about the characters. You killed poor Angel on the very first page and yet it seemed in no time we were forced to endure the life story of the logging camp cook's son Daniel and is father Dominic in addition to lengthy passages about the logging industry and Coos County, New Hampshire.
Maybe you could salvage it, I told myself. Sadly not because of a serious miscalculation. You have Danny accidentally kill a woman and then he and his father flee from Coos County--not before Dominic dumps the body in the house of Carl, the county's resident cop and the woman's lover. Then you try to cast Carl as the villain, repeatedly referring to him as "crazy," "stupid," and "a coward." It never seemed to occur to you that Danny is the killer and he and Dominic the stupid cowards who try to frame the cop and then run away.
Moreover, you don't have Dominic and Danny show much in the way of remorse for what they've done. They certainly don't show any remorse about framing Carl for murder. Mostly, you indicate what an inconvenience and bother it is to noble Danny and Dominic to have to move from Boston to Iowa to Vermont to Canada. You only compound this when you have Danny allow a friend to sic a vicious dog on another dog that had bothered Danny while he was running. Certainly I didn't expect Danny or Dominic to be saints, but these crimes are far greater than merely stealing a loaf of bread and yet you want us to believe that Danny and Dominic are the ones who are being persecuted. Did you think that Carl should have just been cool about it when Dominic dumped his girlfriend's body in his house so Carl would think he'd killed her? Am I really supposed to believe his reaction was unjustifiable? And how stupid are Dominic and Danny that they know Carl's history and try this stunt anyway? Didn't they know it would only make things worse? And did you really expect me to root for the ones who framed an innocent person (at least innocent of that particular crime) for murder?
Only compounding these mistakes further is that by constantly ridiculing Carl, you negate any value he might have as a menacing figure in Danny and Dominic's lives. He's certainly no Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men." You probably should have read that book or at least watched the movie to get a better sense for how this is done.
Could I overlook these huge flaws? Perhaps if there was a great story to go with it or some memorable characters. Sadly the way the elements of the story play out is like a Greatest Hits collection of your previous works--and your own life. Danny goes to Exeter like you did and Ruth did in "Widow for One Year" and Jack did in "Until I Find You" and Garp, Owen Meany, and the Berry family did in previous novels--though in thinly veiled versions of the original. Then he goes to the University of New Hampshire like you did. And he goes to the Iowa Writer's Workshop to be a writer, like you did. He even teaches there when you did and knows the same people, like the dearly departed Kurt Vonnegut. Danny goes to Vermont like you did and then to Toronto like you did. And yet you chide reporters for asking how much of Danny's novels are autobiographical. The sad hypocrisy of this made me laugh.
Even sadder is that these interludes added nothing to the story. We're introduced to a bevy of Asian characters in Iowa as well as Lady Sky the naked parachutist, but none of them have any impact on the overall story. It's the same everywhere else Danny and Dominic goes. They meet people and things happen to them, but none of these seem to matter. By the time the book ended, there were very few of them I could actually name and it would be harder still for me to list any purpose they served. The only interesting character in the book was Ketchum the logger and only because he reminded me of Yukon Cornelius in the old "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" special.
I saw that you described the book as a "political novel" but I failed to see anything political about it. Ketchum rants about George W Bush and Danny meets a woman who allows him to knock her up so he can avoid Vietnam but those are the only "political" elements that I could make out in all of this. Really the criticism of Bush on September 11th struck me as writing in hindsight. I'm not a Bush lover by far but there seemed nothing original or fresh about Ketchum's rants. They didn't add anything and they certainly didn't open my mind to any new insights about the situation. Not the way "Cider House Rules" did.
The book jacket tries to make the case that Coos County is a microcosm of America in the last 50 years and how hate has driven us apart. Or something like that. Maybe this is supposed to be why the novel is "political." In that case, who do Danny and Dominic represent? Who does Carl represent? I don't really see it. Maybe at some point I will.
At any rate, now is the time to say goodbye. We've had some wonderful times since I first picked up "The Cider House Rules;" nothing will ever be able to take those away from us. But like all good things, this must come to an end. I'm sure you'll land on your feet as you still have millions of loyal, adoring fans who seem far more able to overlook the flaws I've noted above. Given time I'm sure I'll find another author to love, though perhaps not as much. Certainly you'll always be my first and for that I'm grateful.
Best of luck to whatever you do next.
Sincerely,
BJ Fraser
PS: For a novel more closely resembling vintage Irving classics, check out "Where You Belong" by Patrick Dilloway
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