A review by jeenwheetson
A Widow for One Year by John Irving

1.0

What a terrible book. This book has nearly ruined John Irving for me. When you commit to read 500 pages, you hope you can trust the author to actually take you somewhere. This was one rambling side story after another, mostly thinly veiled journal entries about the role of personal experience in writing fiction. An actual book about writing would have been much more engaging. There is tragedy and sexual deviance and sprawling intergenerational tales set in New England just like usual with Irving, but they're all a mess, they don't fit together at all. I've only read about half of Irving's books, but I'm afraid I've already covered all the good ones.