- Paperback: 560 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Canada (16 Mar 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0676971946
- ISBN-13: 978-0676971941
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.7 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,430,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
A Widow For One Year
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Product Description
Book Description
A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
Marion Cole, a thirty-nine-year-old woman — and a faithful wife for twenty-two years — has an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy; she then leaves her philandering husband. And also abandons her four-year-old daughter, Ruth.
By the age of thirty-six, Ruth Cole has become an internationally acclaimed novelist. But she is an angry, impulsive, often self-contradictory, unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career, and she distrusts her judgement in men, for good reason. Five years later, at forty-one, Ruth Cole is a widow and a mother. Ruth's child is the same age Ruth was when her mother left her. Now Ruth is about to fall in love for the first time.
A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both richly comic and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.
By the age of thirty-six, Ruth Cole has become an internationally acclaimed novelist. But she is an angry, impulsive, often self-contradictory, unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career, and she distrusts her judgement in men, for good reason. Five years later, at forty-one, Ruth Cole is a widow and a mother. Ruth's child is the same age Ruth was when her mother left her. Now Ruth is about to fall in love for the first time.
A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both richly comic and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having not read a John Irving novel since The Cider House Rules, I wasn't sure I could reacquire the taste for his methods of storytelling. By the very first page of A Widow For One Year, however, I was hooked. This book has the usual Irving mixture of tragedy, comedy, romance, and, of course, sex. And yes...I am man enough to admit that by the end of the book I was moved to tears!
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am at a loss as to why the second part of this book is such a disappointment, for this was exact point at which this book lost me. Told in three parts, the first part is fantastically well written - the characters are well-imagined and depicted such that you feel as if you actually know them. The sections on the upbringing of little Ruth Cole, her wayward father and the role of Eddie are simply superb - I'd love to gush on about why and how, but I don't want to give anything away. There have not been many books that I have sat and read and read and read until I've devoured some 200 pages in one sitting, but this first section is priceless. I had hoped that this would herald a return to form for John Irving after some fairly lean times.
Sadly, this is not the case. Once we are (arbitrarily) flung some forty years into the future, the remainder of the book is self-conscious navel-gazing, focusing on the trials and tribulations of being a successful niche market author. Oh John! Please! This isn't 'magic realism', it's a silly exercise in exorcising your demons, and this narcissism drags the book down with it. Part three is a little better, picking the pace up again, but the long and meandering second section took all the momentum and impetus out of the book and renders later events almost irrelevant. If you are looking for an introduction to John Irving, look elsewhere - ardent fans may lap it up, but it is certainly not his finest hour.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've read and enjoyed a few other John Irving books and this book did not disappoint. If you liked 'The World According To Garp' and 'Hotel New Hampshire' you'll love this book. Told in three distinct sections (much like acts of a play), it presents the life of Ruth Cole centrally, but also the many colourful characters who inhabit her world. Although readers will need to suspend their realism for some of the more unlikely coincidences, this in no way takes from the book. And the fact that so many characters in the book are themselves authors, one gets great insight into John Irving's own probably journey with this and his other books. I would highly recommend this novel, a must for John Irving fans and a good start for a first time reader.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tedious in the extreme
I thoroughly enjoyed "A Prayer For Owen Meany" so was happy to begin a new John Irving - but let me save you some hours of your life you won't get back - it's not worth it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by byron
much to enjoy
In the first part of the book, at 16 year old student visits a children's writer and his wife for a summer job and becomes engaged in their lives; in the second part a successful... Read more
Published 14 months ago by William Jordan
A Widow for One Year by John Irving
John Irving does it again! He really has to be one of my favourite authors. A Widow for One year is again an excellent story of a dysfunctional family, but he takes each character... Read more
Published 18 months ago by P. A. Cunningham
John Iriving and his feminine side
t took a while to get through this one! But I didn't want to give up. It's like that with John Iriving, he is, unfortunately, long winded. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Ger
Classic Irving - unconventional but brilliant
When John Irving is on form, he writes as good a book as you can hope to read. Whilst nothing of his will, in my opinion, match the brilliance of his 'Prayer for Owen Meany', 'A... Read more
Published on 16 May 2010 by BookWorm
"Eating with a novel is not eating alone, Eddie - I'm mildly ashamed...
A Widow For One Year by John Irving.
Simply dedicated `For Janet, a love story' this thumping great fat book covers the lives and loves of the Cole family, their friends... Read more
Simply dedicated `For Janet, a love story' this thumping great fat book covers the lives and loves of the Cole family, their friends... Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2010 by Mrs. Katharine Kirby
Wow, what a strange book
Having read `Garp' I was pretty keen to give another Irving book a go. Well, I kind of wished I hadn't. Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2010 by aus_books
entertaining and well written
This is certainly an interesting and entertaining enough plot to beguile one into rereading after the passage of time. Read more
Published on 22 Nov 2009 by inch worm
Not his best by a long margin
Not his best by a long margin, but worth reading if you're a fan. A book in three parts that despite the consistency of characters feels like three odd books stuck together. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2009 by E. Lander
Interesting but not my favourite
The story takes you on a journey along with its characters (both through their lives and geographically). The style is typical Irving. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2009 by French reader
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