Synopsis
John Irving's 11th novel is about an actor named Jack Burns, son of tattoo artist Alice and church organist William. William departed after fathering Jack, and Alice has been seeking him all these years--as has Jack. At the end of the novel Jack not only finds his father but discovers truths that change him profoundly. In between, he takes part in a series of sexual adventures, in some of which he is abused, and also becomes an acclaimed screenwriter as well as an actor. Irving is always a heavily autobiographical writer who relentlessly homes in on his obsessions, but more events than usual in this novel--which he spent six years writing--overlap with his own, including stints at Exeter (where his father was a teacher) and the University of New Hampshire, as well as his screenwriting career and, as he has said in interviews, the sexual molestation he experienced as a child. Like so many of Irving's novels, including his acclaimed THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, this is a story of violence, dysfunction, and calamity in the life of a fatherless only child who is desperately trying to undo the psychic damage that has blighted his life.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2005-07-12 | | Narrated by: | Arthur Morey | | Edition Description: | Unabridged |
| Size | | Height: | 6.3 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 2.8 in | | Weight: | 28.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
“According to his mother, Jack Burns was an actor before he was an actor, but Jack’s most vivid memories of childhood were those moments when he felt compelled to hold his mother’s hand. He wasn’t acting then.”
So begins John Irving’s eleventh novel, Until I Find You — the story of the actor Jack Burns. His mother, Alice, is a Toronto tattoo artist. When Jack is four, he travels with Alice to several North Sea ports; they are trying to find Jack’s missing father, William, a church organist who is addicted to being tattooed. But Alice is a mystery, and William can’t be found. Even Jack’s memories are subject to doubt.
Jack Burns goes to schools in Canada and New England, but what shapes him are his relationships with older women. John Irving renders Jack’s life as an actor in Hollywood with the same richness of detail and range of emotions he uses to describe the tattoo parlors in those North Sea ports and the reverberating music Jack heard as a child in European churches.
The author’s tone — indeed, the narrative voice of this novel — is melancholic. (“In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us — not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.”) Until I Find You is suffused with overwhelming sadness and deception; it is also a robust and comic novel, certain to be compared to John Irving’s most ambitious and moving work.
From the Hardcover edition.
Industry Reviews
"The life of an actor is compromised and traumatized by his many relationships with older women, in Irving's sprawling...11th novel."
Kirkus (05/15/2005)
"...Irving handles the less seedy elements superbly...."
Publishers Weekly (06/06/2005)
At more than 800 pages, UNTIL I FIND YOU takes the crown for the best longest novel of recent years....[I]f the story of Jack Burns, Hollywood star and screenwriter, and his quest to find his father had been a third or even twice again as long, I would have stayed with it."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Alan Cheuse (07/10/2005)
"Jack Burns's trip with his mother in the novel's first seven chapters reiterates the central premise of most of Irving's fiction: since all childhoods, even the most pampered, can seem scary, why not expose a fictional child to experiences--grotesque, farcical, sexually outlandish--that might cause even jaded adults to blanch, and then see what happens?"
New York Times Book Review - Paul Gray (07/17/2005)
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A Long, Quirky Journey to Nowhere
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