Product Description

A tragic-comic classic from one of the world’s greatest living writers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77608 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 928 pages

Synopsis
Jack Burns' mother, Alice, is a tattoo artist in search of the boy's father, William, a virtuoso organist, who has fled America to Europe. To fund her journey, she plies her trade in the seaports of the North Sea as she tracks her four-year-old son's errant father. But Alice is a mystery, and William can't be found. And even Jack's memories are subject to doubt. Jack returns to the United States, and studies in Canada and New England, but his life is still shaped by the events of his childhood quest, in particular his relationships with older women. It is only when he becomes a Hollywood actor that what he has experienced in the past comes into telling play in his present...

From the Back Cover
This is the story of the actor Jack Burns, the bastard son of Alice, a tattoo-artist. Alice and Jack travel through the Baltic’s port cities in search of William Burns, Jack’s absconding father and ‘ink addict’. But William, a church organist and profligate womaniser, is always one step ahead – always departing in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local ‘scratcher’.

William can't be found and Jack must grow up without a father. His childhood and education shaped by sexual experiences with older women. Later, as a young man with a beautiful face, Jack moves to Hollywood where international fame and stardom await. But with the shadow of his absent father always looming, Jack sets off again in search of the truth.

An absorbing and moving book about obsession and loss, truth and storytelling, the signs we carry on us and inside us, and the traces we can’t get rid of, Until I Find You is John Irving's giant tapestry of life’s hopes. It is a masterpiece to compare with Irving’s great novels, and restates his position as the most glorious, comic, moving novelist at work today.

'What in time may be considered to be Irving's magnum opus' Glasgow Herald

'Immensely moving and shot through with wit, humour and sadness, this book is addictive' Red

About the Author
John Irving:
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a 'grim' child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. 'It was so simple,' he remembers. 'Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.'

In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, about a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo, was followed by The Water-Method Man, a comic tale of a man with a urinary complaint, and The 158-Pound Marriage, which exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved international recognition with The World According to Garp, which he hoped would 'cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts'.

The Hotel New Hampshire is a startlingly original family saga, and The Cider House Rules is the story of Doctor Wilbur Larch - saint, obstetrician, founder of an orphanage, ether addict and abortionist - and of his favourite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. A Prayer for Owen Meany features the most unforgettable character Irving has yet created. A Son of the Circus is an extraordinary evocation of modern day India. John Irving's latest and most ambitious novel is A Widow for One Year.

A collection of John Irving’s shorter writing, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, was published in 1993. Irving has also written the screenplays for The Cider House Rules and A Son of the Circus, and wrote about his experiences in the world of movies in his memoir My Movie Business.

Irving has had a life-long passion for wrestling, and he plays a wrestling referee in the film of The World According to Garp. In his memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, John Irving writes about his life as a wrestler, a novelist and as a wrestling coach. He now writes full-time, has three children and lives in Vermont and Toronto.

Customer Reviews

A Good Read
A very good book indeed which I enjoyed. I say that as a person who views wrestling, tatooing and the early sexualisation of children with a lot of distaste.
There is a reason for the excessive detail in tbe first 150 pages and once you get into the rhythm and past it, things are fine.It's a good sign to me if one is able to love, hate, like or dislike characters. It means they are well drawn.
Of course one could have constructed a much shorter book with the same plot outline. For those in a hurry I am sure the Guardian had a 200 word and a 50 word synopsis.

Familiar territory, great charaters but a disappointing ending
I'll not summarise the story, see other reviews for this. If you've read JI before then you know what to expect. This is one of his best but I don't think it is quite up there with his very best - nevertheless I found this unputdownable and loved every page of it.

As usual a huge array of somewhat unusual charaters have been created - these are not everyday folk and some of the things they do are way off the credibility scale. The book takes a real twist about two thirds of thw way through which makes the reader doubt much of what has been read before (just as the main character doubts his own memories) and I think this is the most effective and impressive element of the story.

For me the Hollywood/fame section of the story is the least interesting and I thought that the author may of been thinking about the film version of the book at this point.

My only other difficuly with the book was its ending, not so much in the plot ending which was OK but in some of the retrospective story that is given at this point which I just found silly (e.g the pictires on the wall). The ending seemed to be rushed which seems incredible in a book of 900+ pages.
Despite this though I would recommend this book, but not ahead of the Owen Meany, Garp, Cider House and Hotel New Hampshire.

Maybe not your cup of tea, but still a great book.
Covering much ground, there were sections of the book I "learned" to quickly skim through...detailed descriptions of tattoos, descriptions of old Euro-church architecture, etc. Some may love these elaborations; it didn't mean much to me. Irving certainly seemed to enjoy telling us about them. But there was a point to it, I understand-- it was a part of these characters lives.

Without a doubt the book as a whole was intruiging. The story is rich with emotion and love and pain and injustice and struggle and loss and success. Just like life. And throughout every phase of Jack's life, as strange as it was at times, I really wanted everything to work out for him.