Avenue of Mysteries

From the first page to the last, there is a goodness to this novel, a tenacious belief in love and the redemptive power of human connection, unfettered by institutions and conventions. This belief, combined with good old-fashioned storytelling, is surely why Irving is so often described as Dickensian. But John Irving is his own thing, and so is his new novel. Avenue of Mysteries is thoroughly modern, accessibly brainy, hilariously eccentric and beautifully human. – Tayari Jones * New York Times Book Review *
Irving has packed so much detail in … And yet he has not run out of what has endeared him to so many for so long: immense charm, an appetite to hurtle headlong at the biggest questions and the altogether unfashionable belief that sentimentality is not a crime against art * Guardian *
Mischievous … Challenging and absorbing … Juan Diego emerges as one of Irving’s most memorable and fascinating creations, which is saying something. He is a twenty-first century Garp. * Herald *
Irving has embarked on his dark phase, as did Dickens. It will be interesting, if melancholy, to follow him down that gloomy avenue * The Times *
A typically idiosyncratic Irving novel: at times exhausting, at other times rambling and self-indulgent, but always readable, impassioned and thought-provoking * Mail on Sunday *
Grabs you by the throat in a way few other authors’ work can * Daily Mail *
Irving’s powers of storytelling – when to give knowledge and when to withhold it, then smack you in the face with it – remain intact * Telegraph *

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times, winning once in 1980 for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for the short story “Interior Space”.

In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules, a film that received seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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