I’ve been a John Irving fan since Garp, after which I read his previous five novels: Setting Free the Bears, The 158 Lb. Marriage, etc. I enjoyed them all, but post-Garp I began to have some trouble with his books. Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany’s situations were so ridiculous, they made me crazy. Later, A Widow for One Year, caught my attention and I thought it was an excellent book and a major return to form.
As mentioned above, what sent me over the edge about some of Irving’s work was that the situations and scenarios were patently ridiculous and major plot points were built around pointless happenings. Farting dogs come quickly, and unfortunately, to mind. Last Night in Twisted River waits 50 or 60 pages before beginning to get ridiculous, it then, however, dives in with both feet. SPOILER ALERT: Danny kills Injun Jane with a skillet, when he’s eight years old?? The Cowboy believes that he must have killed her because he can’t remember that he didn’t??
The idea that the lowlife sheriff (the Cowboy, mentioned earlier) would track Dominic Baciagalupa, AKA the cook and the nominal main character, and his son Danny through their whole lives to try to kill them, not because Danny had killed Injun Jane, the Cowboy’s girlfriend, (which the Cowboy didn’t know at the time, but later found out), but because Dominic was sleeping with her, is ridiculous. The idea that Danny thought his father was being mauled by a bear when he was having sex with Injun Jane is ridiculous. The thought that Pam, AKA Lady Sky, would skydive naked into a pig slop is ridiculous. The entire Ketchum character is ridiculous. To think that he would spend his whole life trying to protect Dominic and Danny, Ketchum’s former romantic rival and that rival’s son respectively, makes one’s eyes roll.
The dead bear smell, the incessant faxing, the FARTING DOG, the touching only with the right hand, the cutting off of the left hand… all crazy. Yet, in this case, I bought every bit of it. LNITR was such an entertaining, enjoyable, funny, crazy ride that I went with it. Even if the plot telegraphed itself hundreds of pages in advance, I didn’t care. We know Cowboy will kill Dominic, we know Joe will die in an accident, we know Ketchum will kill himself, and we know that Lady Sky will reappear, each one long before we have any right to. Yet, when it all happens in doesn’t seem predictable, it seems predestined.
The passage where Dot and May show up at Dominic’s workplace, which puts him on the run from the Cowboy again, is ridiculously coincidental and not at all believable… and yet, it works. The book is not overtly Carl Hiassen crazy, laugh out loud weird. Dare I say, it is slightly more subtle than that. And, undeniably the details about cooking and logging are fascinating, as are the vignettes of rural life in the Northern climes.
I would definitely recommend this book for its well-drawn, (if sometimes ridiculous) characters, the quality of the writing, the cleverness of the plotting (even when it was telegraphing itself, this reader was thinking, “that’s darn clever!”) the quality of the (cooking and logging) research and the entertainment factor. This book straddles the line between popular fiction and literature, and rarely is literature this much fun. Read it if you like Irving, read it if you like some of Irving, or read it if you are looking for a good time from a generally seriously intentioned work.
Unofficial (Since this isn’t a Pulitzer Prize winner) RogerRater Score (1-5): 4.1
Check out the Facebook page below for something else that I am involved in! Become a fan. Thanks!
Tags: bear smell, Danny Angel, Dominic Baciagulapa, Injun Jane, Ketchum, Kiss of the Wolf, Lady Sky, Last Night in Twisted River, naked skydiver, pig shit, The Cowboy
