se71

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July 06, 2002

The Fourth Hand - John Irving

Womanising reporter finds lasting relationship

'Disaster Man' Wallingford has his left hand eaten by a lion whilst doing a news report at a circus in India. This is the story of how he finds a transplant hand, and falls in love with the deceased donor's wife. She has seen the incident on the TV news, and feels drawn to him to such an extent that she even had her husband give his permission before he had his own fatal accident. She is obsessed with the hand, and forces Wallingford to have a baby with her before he can have the tranplant. As the baby boy grows up, so does Wallingford, and he decides he wants to move from New York where he is a news anchor, up to Wisconson to be with the boy and his mother. Eventually she agrees.

There are quite a few side stories; one is of the surgeon who performs the operations and his relationship with his own son, another is about a woman who works with Wallingford and desperately wants to have a baby with him too. The author even toys with drug induced dreams of future events that nearly come true, but stop just short.

Irving likes to have bizarre situations in his novels, and many of these involve sex. He writes with a lot of humour though so that the books come across as funny rather than seedy. It's difficult to explain why the book is so good, maybe it's just the way the prose flows, and the storytelling skill. It is a very engaging read though, building on the themes he's introduced in earlier books about divorce, bereavement, and amputation!

It's a story of life and love at the tail end of the 20th century, told with humour and warmth, highly recommended.

AE 3

Posted by se71 at July 6, 2002 11:16 AM

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