A review by bartendm
A Widow For One Year by John Irving

4.0

Like all John Irving books, his characters are all a little, well, off. They are not typical people, which makes them more interesting. In this novel he contrasts 4 different writers, one a writer of children's books that is more interested in seducing mothers than entertaining children, his daughter who writes popular women's books, her mother who left her at age 4 and writes crime novels focused on missing persons and a very mediocre author who keeps writing about his affair with the mother as a teenager. The scene is set for some interesting interactions between these writers as they come to understand what they mean to each other.

Much of the novel focuses on Ruth and her coming to terms with her philandering father and disappearing mother. Both influence her in ways she is not fully conscious of. Despite her success as a writer, she doesn't have the amount of self confidence you might expect. Yet, she can respond rather aggressively to those that have hurt her. When asked about this in an interview published at the end of my copy, John Irving agreed with her right to revenge and said, "If people take a piece out of you, what's wrong with taking a piece and a half or two pieces out of them? I don't pick fights. I do fight back." So if you imagine that attitude in an insecure female author, you have one taste of this complex character.

One interesting part of the book focuses on the legal prostitution trade in Amsterdam and what life is like for the prostitutes. Irving takes us into a world most of us would not see and brings people in it to life. It's not my favorite John Irving book, but I did enjoy it and the journey into his unusual character's worlds.