Product Description

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...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35215 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 928 pages

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 has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar. Until I Find You is his eleventh novel.

Customer Reviews

Only one word - extraordinary!
This is the only novel I have felt compelled to write a review of. Its impact upon me was profound and I have since re-read it. For such a huge novel, that is quite some undertaking.
This book is full of typical Irving-esque characters - wrestlers, tattooists, writers, not to mention an actor protagonist, Jack Burns. However, there is clearly something deeply personal in this book for the author here. The book is so vast simply because our experiences are so varied and compicated. Jack Burns emerges as a character with an psychological truth that is unprecedented in modern fiction. His memories and neuroses (maybe shared with the author?) dominate this book and each of the other characters is presented through his perceptions and experiences. Of course, this is how real life is for each of us. Everyone external to us can only be viewed subjectively and true 'objectivity' is actually impossible as long as we relate to others as humans. This is what Irving presents; a painfully real and limited human being who when confronted with agonising situations reacts in a pathetically human and limited way - just like all of us. If you find Jack an inexplicable or despicable character, you may get frustrated with this novel, but if you recognise him as a truthful portrayal of the product of an awkward and painful union of two real people you will be bowled over.
At the heart of this novel is a representation of family which has such love and empathy that it will braek your heart, if you have one. Certainly, no novel's climax has ever wrung such 'tears of blood' (Byron) from me. The psychological portrait of neurosis is incredibly accurate. It is possible that Irving has presented the reader with facts about himself wrung from years of self-analysis mixed with fiction. I can't theorise, but I can testify that he achieves a psychological truthfulness that is truly shocking to find in a novel.
Aside from this, there is enough eccentricity and weirdness to keep anyone laughing and satisfied. There are very few novels that I have made an impact on my emotional life rather than being some kind of cultural 'divertimento'. This is one of the few that have. (The other I can count on the fingers of one hand )
I have recommended this to everyone I am close to and none of them have failed to have been bowled over.

Best Irving since The Cider House Rules?
John Irving's longest work to date tells the story of Jack Burns. His mother is a tattoist and his father an organist, addicted to music tattoos. It begins with Jack's recollections of his travels through northern Europe with his mother at the age of 4 in search of his absent father. In a strange mixture of hotels, tattoo shops and churches Irving paints a picture of Jack's early life and his perception of his parents. Jack and his mother apparently give up the trail and settle down in Canada with no sign of his absent father.

He attends an all-girls school which has just admitted its first boys and meets Emma Oastler, an older girl, who will become his closest friend. Even at an early age, his life is dominated by older women and Jack suffers abuse in a variety of ways. He finds his niche, acting in school drama productions, particularly excelling in female roles. Sent away to boarding school in the States, Jack feels rejected not only by his father but also his mother. Unable to find a lasting relationship, he moves to LA and eventually gets a break in acting.

Then two tragedies strike Jack's life. Bit by bit, Jack starts to piece together his past. He returns to Europe and discovers that the world is not always as it seems to a four year-old boy.

Irving has created a host of dysfunctional characters, with whom I am pleased to say I could sympathise. For me, this was a great improvement on A Widow For One Year. Despite its air of sadness, the author's usual wit and humour are as strong as usual. The story of Jack Burns in some ways reflects Irving's own personal life and although, he changed the narrative from first to third person, it is this personal connnection which makes it a very poignant novel; perhaps his best work for a number of years.

Sprawling epic
"Until I Find You" tells the life story of Jack Burns and is so long it's almost best to consider it as a collection of five related novellas. It starts off promisingly enough on classic Irving territory, as his tattoo artist mother Alice takes him on a tour of Nordic countries in search of his father, a church organ player.

However, my heart sunk as the action inexplicably moves to the red-light district of Amsterdam and you realise that you are going to be on a reprise of a previous novel, namely an almost exact regurgitation of the backdrop of "Widow for One Year".

Things sink further when Jack returns to Canada and he starts school at the (almost) all-girl St Hilda's. A trio of cardboard-thin teachers take up much of the action and Alice Burns, one of the strongest characters, disappears entirely for three chapters without explanation.

The teachers are so boring and badly-drawn that they seem to only have one trait each: Mr Malcolm has a disabled wife, Miss Wurtz is inept (but strangely wonderful at organising school plays) and Mrs McQuat just has a knack of appearing and disappearing suddenly. And yet these people keep reappearing in the plot whereas other more promising areas of action are ignored.

Most annoying are the series of school plays which Miss Wurtz organises. These are described in detail and are all based on 18th century novels. I skipped this section of the book entirely, it got so repetitive.

I liked Jack's life as an actor in LA better, but even this reads as a below par Armistead Maupin tribute.

In previous Irving novels you are prepared to put up with the multiple characters and hyper-real situations because you care about the heroes, whether it be the diminutive Owen Meany or the hapless Garp. But it's hard to spare much concern for Jack who seems completely self-obsessed and worries more about getting a cauliflower ear in wrestling practice than he does about his girlfriend's abortion. You also get no sense of time passing: people behave in the same way in 1970s Scotland as they do in present-day California, and scant mention is made of AIDS or contraception despite the almost constant sexual activity taking place. This is lazy and irresponsible.

In short, the previous Irving work this most resembles is "Hotel New Hampshire" and fans of "A Prayer for Owen Meany" or "The World According to Garp" will be sorely disappointed.