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A Widow for One Year

by John Irving (Goodreads Author)

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 32,982 ratings · 1,569 reviews

Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character—a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten.

Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her, on Long Island, in the summer of 1958, Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1...more

Hardcover, 537 pages

Published April 28th 1998 by Knopf Canada (first published 1998)

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Jul 12, 2012 devon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I don't much know how I feel about this one. The first section of the book is completely brilliant. As is the last line. But in between is rushed, contrite, and full of coincidences that seems like cheap ways to move the story along. Irving gets around conflict in the second part of the book by killing people off. Don't want to deal with the Ruth/Ted conflict? Kill him off! Don't want ruth to have to face her husband about what happened in Amsterdam? Kill him off! And apparently, having a baby s...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

John Irving has yet again created a whole world between the covers of a novel. Characters grow old with the reader, experience lust and loss, love and life. The thoughtfulness of his every detail and the concise placement of every word create a landscape more vivid than reality
One of the interesting topics of conversation in A Widow for One Year involves the main character’s attitude towards autobiographical fiction. Irving’s protagonist, world-famous author Ruth Cole, gives one hope that the po...more John Irving has yet again created a whole world between the covers of a novel. Characters grow old with the reader, experience lust and loss, love and life. The thoughtfulness of his every detail and the concise placement of every word create a landscape more vivid than reality
One of the interesting topics of conversation in A Widow for One Year involves the main character’s attitude towards autobiographical fiction. Irving’s protagonist, world-famous author Ruth Cole, gives one hope that the powers of the imagination can compensate for lacking experience. Or, as would seem the case with my imagination, compensate for inobservance. When Ruth doubts her imagination and seeks real-life research for inspiration, she finds that reality is rarely as scripted and contained as her fiction. Appropriately enough, even her harsh reality is just a construct of Irving (although I am not familiar enough with him to know if it comes from his imagination or not). Ruth vehemently criticizes a journalistic tendency to mirror one’s stories on autobiography; yet one wonders how many of Irving’s repeat themes stick with him due to his personal history.

One aspect of A Widow for One Year that struck a chord (other than the glorious title) was the fact that, except for on a few rare occasions, the characters did not change. A love-struck boy, aged into his fifties, carries his idealized boyhood obsession throughout his adulthood. A philandering husband merely morphs into a philandering divorcé, and a woman bearing the sadness of the world carries it with her throughout self-inflicted exile. A whorish best friend does not let life jade her into changing, although she may at times feel a twinge of regret for the innocent pleasures she forfeits. In the end, who has changed? The characters have perhaps learned to understand each other, but doesn’t the understanding they receive allow them to sink ever deeper into the comfort of their own well-established personalities?
I also had the pleasure of watching the movie based on the beginning third of this book, entitled A Door in the Floor (starring Kim Basinger and Jeff Bridges). I thought it wise to focus solely on the exposition (if it could even be given such a flippant categorization), which in itself contained more that is real than your typical reader’s life. Although I would eventually become quite fond of our 30-something female protagonist who does not appear until the latter two-thirds, the episodes surrounding her during that fateful childhood summer are certainly what establish the story’s weight and depth of feeling. Ruth’s ability to create such powerful memories of family members that have only ever existed in photographs is a testament to the power of the imagination – both Ruth’s and John Irving’s.
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Aug 02, 2012 E rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

The first half is Irving at his best. All those hooks on the wall. All that broken glass and all those windblown sketches. All that honesty amid all that posturing. All that clunky sex amid endless guilt.

The second half embodies the detachment, the absurdity, the too-many-ideas-at-once that the main characters have grown to embrace. Perhaps they are defense mechanisms. Perhaps they are the inevitable scars of emotional abuse. Marion is so matter-of-fact about her fate, so resigned to a life that...more

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Jul 03, 2008 Erick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first couple hundred pages of the book, before it jumps forward several decades, are the most even, and it is this part of the story that is most endearing. This first part introduces us to the story's three or four main characters and chronicles their shared summer of 1958--a summer which, you guessed it, has profound effects on the rest of all their lives.

And it is much of the rest of these lives that Irving takes us through in the remaining four hundred pages, and due to the front-heavy n...more

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Mar 09, 2008 Kellie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-reads

When I think about a book written by John Irving, the picture that comes to mind is a vine; a vine that weaves within itself and spreads thick in it’s own mass. This is the 3rd Irving book I have read. Irving uses some of the same themes in his many novels. Boarding schools, younger men with older women are some that immediately come to mind. This particular book is about a family that lives in The Hamptons. The father, Ted is an author of children’s books. The wife, Marion, is also an author bu...more

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Sep 07, 2007 Eli rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

The first thing that struck me about this book was the heart-stopping beauty of Marion, a central character near the beginning of the book. It's tough to get images that concrete in written words, but Irving handles it without strain. Its not just a physical description, its the way that the rest of the image is a bit darker, a bit fuzzier when Marion is in the picture, like Irving is using the depth of field in a photograph to highlight the subject, like her physical brilliance is so overwhelmi...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My 4-star "read" review is really a misnomer because I haven't really "read" this book. This is my third try at it and once again I am stopping at the same spot I stopped the other two times! I reread the first third of the book, which I enjoyed, got into the second third of the book, read about 50 pages and come to a grinding halt.

I'm really not sure what it is that is stopping me at this point but since it is the third time, I'm not sure I will try again. I returned it to the library and am a...more

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Jul 13, 2007 Kate rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: no one

I hated this book. John Iriving's inability to write women characters was a huge problem in this book since it has a female protagonist. I didn't care about her at all and I wasn't that intrigued by the story either. I generally like John Irving's writing style, but it didn't make any difference to me with this book because I didn't like one single character.

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Nov 24, 2012 Mitch rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

This is one of those 537-page books that, after you've read about 100 pages, you realize you've pretty much seen what the author's handing out and you don't care for it. This is a drag because there is so much more of it to go and only some misguided impulse to finish what you've started goads you stubbornly onward.

What's not to like? Well, here's some:

At times Irving writes with the grace of a ballet dancer and at others he lumbers along like a blindfolded football player looking for an exit....more

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Jul 18, 2008 Caitlin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Jun 12, 2008 Jeana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: good-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 08, 2008 Suzanne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the great books Irving has ever written, this novel is basically two stories in one. A fairly accurate and well-done film version of the first part came out a few years ago entitled "A Door in the Floor". It was well cast with Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger and filmed on location on Long Island.
This is the story of a young girl born to two people whose lives were destroyed when their two young sons were killed while driving their parents home after a night of too much drink. The child is...more

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Mar 16, 2010 Tory rated it 5 of 5 stars

I saw a trailer for the film based on this book, and decided I should read it again before seeing it. I love LOVE John Irving. I love what his mind comes up with. There are very few books that I am willing to re-read, but John Irving’s books are some of the few.

I was looking at the reviews on Amazon and a lot of people were getting down on the book. Because it “wasn’t realistic” - “just didn’t ring true” Fiction, people. Do we understand the concept? It’s NOT true. It’s a story, that someone wro...more

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Aug 03, 2008 Stephanie "Jedigal" rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Stephanie "Jedigal" by: Karyn

Wow. My 5th Irving, and what a good book. As usual, the author depicts scenarios that seem SO UNLIKELY! and yet they are believable and compelling.

A major theme of this novel is grief, grief for those we've lost to death, grief for our bad past choices, grief for loss of connection with the living, grief over abandonment. Connected to this, however, is the theme of love. Love of children for their parents, love of parents for children, love for our fellow man whom we may not know very well, the...more

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Jul 01, 2008 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Jul 24, 2007 Ian Wilson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ivereadit

I read this directly following The World According to Garp...not a good idea. The parallels are abundant, and for the first half or so of the book I wondered about Irving's fixation on writing about writers. Like song writers writing about writing songs, it's an interesting possible introspection on the writer's part, sharing their process, doubts, etc with their audience. It really can be charming, the first time around. When I get into the second and feel as though I'm reading a parallel novel...more

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Nov 16, 2007 Oceana9 rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: horny bored housewives

OK here's my final word on John Irving, because I will probably never read anything else he's written (though I've heard The World According to Garp is his best.) His characters are real and they were JUST ENOUGH to keep me going each of the twenty times I nearly stopped reading this novel. The plot is a rambling patchwork in which we never, ever, forget the writer sitting at his typewriter, searching for something to say. When he finds it, he riffs on it till it dies, and then searches for some...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Allison rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Way more quirky and twisting plot than I expected, but thoroughly enjoyable story.

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Dec 08, 2008 Annika rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is typical John Irving good storytelling. The bookjacket promises "a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force." I'll give it that. But the love story is not the most interesting part. I like book sex as much as the next reader. But in addition to detailed and engaging personality descriptions Irving is also really articulate about bodily descriptions and refers to the main character's "great breasts" a few too many times for my liking. The more interesting story is the writer'...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Airin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the only Irving novel I've read so far, but I plan to read more in the future. I read "A widow for one year" about a year ago, and I picked it unknowingly in the bookshop without knowing anything about the author, his style or the story. To be honest, I picked it up just because:

a) It was long and it was summer
b) It began with the sentence "One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking -it was coming from her parent...more

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Jul 18, 2012 David Brown rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had never read a John Irving novel until the one who is always right, Mrs B, handed me a copy of The World According To Garp. Mrs B once told me my style of writing reminded her of Irving so I was understandably intrigued to try one of his books. I found Garp a stunning read with its mixture of comedy and tragedy shared by a group of memorable characters. In facing A Widow For One Year my hope was that the magic of Garp would remain.

The novel is divided into three parts covering the years 1958...more I had never read a John Irving novel until the one who is always right, Mrs B, handed me a copy of The World According To Garp. Mrs B once told me my style of writing reminded her of Irving so I was understandably intrigued to try one of his books. I found Garp a stunning read with its mixture of comedy and tragedy shared by a group of memorable characters. In facing A Widow For One Year my hope was that the magic of Garp would remain.

The novel is divided into three parts covering the years 1958, 1990 and 1995 with the central character being the steadfast novelist, Ruth Cole. Ruth is only four in the first part and the focus of the story is mostly on an affair between Ruth's mother, Marion, and a 16 year old student, Eddie O'Hare, who is working for Ruth's father, Ted, throughout the summer. The first part ends with Marion's sudden departure, the conclusion of Eddie's summer job and Ruth being left in the care of her father, Ted, a once renowned children's author who is now more interested in sketching sordid images of the countless women he indulges in affairs with and casts aside without a second thought.

In the second part Ruth is a famous writer promoting her third novel. While the shadow of her mother's departure still hangs over her, Ruth remains an independent but cautious woman who has little faith in men. Amongst the key events in this second part is a reunion for Ruth with Eddie O'Hare and a visit to Amsterdam that helps shape Ruth's fourth novel but leaves a lasting impact on her. The third and final part sees Ruth having taken a chance with a man and been left a widow and single mother. In trying to put her life back together Ruth finds love waiting for her in the most unexpected of places.
As with Garp, Irving once again displays the quality of making us smile before lining up unforgettable tragedy. In the first part, the Cole household on Long Island is haunted by the images of Ted and Marion's dead sons, Thomas and Timothy, the brothers Ruth has never met and has only ever known through photographs. Irving's later revelation of how the brothers were killed is a chilling chapter with striking imagery as Ted Cole finally tells Ruth the story about her siblings while she is behind the wheel of a car and focused on the road ahead. It's the most powerful moment of the book for me.

I found the first part the most enjoyable for the bulk of the laughs could be found here, particularly Ted Cole having to run through a series of gardens to escape a mistress he has rejected and wished he hadn't. As adults Ruth and Eddie are moving slowly forward with their lives but always being held back by the past. Ruth anticipates her mother's return at significant events in her life and always feels the void whenever this doesn't occur, while Eddie, now also a novelist, remains in love with Marion after more than three decades. The final part is the shortest and weakest of the three for me as Irving brings all the main characters together but somehow it feels a bit rushed. Had the book been longer, particularly in part three, I don't think it would have been any less enjoyable though what's there is still brilliant.

A Widow For One Year has maintained my faith in John Irving. There are some great characters with the majority reflecting the stranglehold the past can have on us no matter how many years have passed. Many of the book's images - Thomas and Timothy's pictures, Ruth's drive with Ted, the Red Room in Amsterdam, Eddie O'Hare's everlasting love for Marion - stayed with me after reading the last page. Though not as good as Garp I would still mention A Widow For One Year in the same breath. (less)

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Apr 23, 2012 Laurent rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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. As a vaguely intelligent human being who has seen the world revolve, I have several gripes with this book.

Firstly, it is my firm belief that Eddie O'Hare must be one of the biggest fools in literary history, if he cannot get over Ruth Cole. Come on, are you serious? He keeps loving her until they're old and decrepit despite not seeing her for all those years. That my fr...more

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Feb 01, 2012 Bridgette Redman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’d forgotten what an intoxicating writer John Irving is. His compelling prose has a clarity and starkness that manages to entertain your brain and soul while permanently incorporating his characters and stories into your memory and being.

Irving is not one of those writers who kicks out a new novel every year. His novels are too carefully crafted, too (dare I say it?) literary to be anything less than an evolutionary process. After reading A Widow for One Year, I suspect his books are touchstone...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Eliza rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love John Irving and have been reading him faithfully for many years. This book had some interesting themes around motherhood, grieving, and the art of writing fiction. But it was dull. If it weren't for the fact that I have a long history with John Irving's work, I might have put it down. I stuck with the novel because I assumed a writer of Irving's talent would have a strong payoff for my effort. Unfortunately, the ending was predictable and uninteresting. To be fair, the first section of th...more

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Oct 24, 2011 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary

I started to give this four stars but, the more I thought about it, well, here's five stars.

A fifth star (from me) means there has to be something timeless about the story, passages that express moments of what I think of as universal connection and deep understanding. My heart either seems to slow down or speed up and I sometimes close my eyes and feeling a welling up of emotion inside. I suppose if I were willing to spend the time on this review I could express myself better, but here I sit i...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Nirmala rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“A widow for one year”...a different book...grief is described so ..errr...differently...then it is hilarious too...explicit at places, bit repulsive though..but if u ask me if I liked it- I dont know...i’m curious, intrigued, and the narration style is gripping...the chronology is random, references are made to future incidents...there is no attempt to hold back ...no suspense...there are psychological insights...and yet I ‘m not sure if it will have a lingering effect in me as a good book.......more

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Aug 10, 2011 Kelly A. rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fill-in-the-gaps-project-100

A Widow for One Year is a story about Ruth Cole, told in three parts. For the first part of the book, she’s only four years old. In the second, she’s in her 30's, a successful writer. In the last part of the book, she is 41, widowed, and the mother of a one year old.

The story is both tragic and farcical. When it opens, her two older brothers have both perished in a car accident. (Something Ruth doesn’t have the capacity to understand, and her mother doesn’t have the capacity deal with .) Ruth’s...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Kristin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

John Irving has this way of making me feel really disturbed and uncomfortable. I had a hard time rating this book because there's no denying that he's a fantastic writer. I've never seen an author who can write in the third-person omniscient point-of-view as well as he can, as well as frequently jump back and forth in time without confusing the reader. However, this story could have been told without the really graphic scenes and all the gratuitous sex, and it still would have been great.
The Col...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Katherine Porter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I vacillate between loving and loathing John Irving. Mostly I come down in favor of loving, but it is a love-hate relationship I have with his books. This book did ultimately draw me, woo me and win me over, despite the flawed characters, the (very male) graphic, sometimes violent, sometimes pathetic sex scenes, the violence and the pain inflicted by the various characters on each other. In some sense, the book's discourse on literature (most of the main characters are writers of some kind) may...more I vacillate between loving and loathing John Irving. Mostly I come down in favor of loving, but it is a love-hate relationship I have with his books. This book did ultimately draw me, woo me and win me over, despite the flawed characters, the (very male) graphic, sometimes violent, sometimes pathetic sex scenes, the violence and the pain inflicted by the various characters on each other. In some sense, the book's discourse on literature (most of the main characters are writers of some kind) may be seeking to deflect criticism, either of this book or of John Irving's other books. Or is his answer to his critics. Fundamentally, this is a book about writers, and whether "real" writers write from experience or from imagination or both. The main character, Ruth, is a writer, and we first meet her at age 4, the summer that her mother Marion leaves her and her father Ted. Ted is also a writer, of children's books, Marion becomes a writer of crime fiction, and Marion's teenage lover becomes a writer of (bad) fiction. All of them, with the possible exception of Ted, are writing to express some fundamental truth about their lives: Marion (about her dead sons and the loss from which she never recovers), Ruth (about herself, her friend and her absent mother), and the lover (about his love for Marion). Irving is funny, in parts, particularly while describing Ted's sexual exploits with the mothers of the children who read his books (he, by the way, never does claim to be a writer). We see Ruth grow up, waiting for her mother's return. Characters in the book argue with Ruth about whether HER characters would have done this or that; that is, some say that Ruth cannot write about divorce, or motherhood, or widowhood because she had not (at the time of writing) experienced such things. While I am not usually a quibbler about characters (I tend to trust the writer about his or her creation), I did wonder about John Irving's portrayal of Ruth after her father commits suicide. I don't know that Ruth would not have felt guilt about her father's choice, particularly as it closes follows her telling her father the very horrific story of her rape, which she essentially blames on him. (less)

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Sep 03, 2010 Cams rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-twice, top-10

I just finished reading this for the second time and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was given it by a friend back in 1999 as I departed for Sochi, Russia. I read it whilst I was there and, if I remember correctly, it was my first John Irving novel. (I've since read The World According to Garp and The Fourth Hand).

The story is about a writer, who gets a job with a writer as a writer's assistant and falls in love with the writer's wife (who, later, becomes a writer). The husband and wife have a four-ye...more

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About John Irving

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving’s fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving’s novels are now translated into thirty...more John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving’s fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving’s novels are now translated into thirty-five foreign languages, and he has had nine international bestsellers. Worldwide, the Irving novel most often called “an American classic” is A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)—the portrayal of an enduring friendship at that time when the Vietnam War had its most divisive effect on the United States.

In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, until he was thirty-four, and coached the sport until he was forty-seven.) In 2000, Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules—a Lasse Hallström film with seven Academy Award nominations. Tod Williams wrote and directed The Door in the Floor—the 2004 film adapted from Mr. Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year.

In One Person is John Irving’s thirteenth novel, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2012. A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love — tormented, funny, and affecting — and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 — in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp.

His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers — a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

Born John Wallace Blunt, Jr., in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, Mr. Irving’s name was changed to John Winslow Irving in 1948, when his mother remarried. (His mother’s maiden name was Winslow.) Mr. Irving named his first son, Colin, after his stepfather, Colin F.N. Irving, who taught in the History Department at Phillips Exeter Academy, where John Irving graduated in 1961; he was captain of the wrestling team at Exeter, and also wrestled at the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Irving later attended the Institute for European Studies in Vienna, Austria. He has a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire and a M.F.A. from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where his mentor was Kurt Vonnegut.

Before the success of The World According to Garp enabled John Irving to become a full-time writer, he had several college teaching positions—not only at his alma mater in Iowa City, where he taught for three years, but also at Mt. Holyoke College and Brandeis University.

In the ‘80s, Mr. Irving lived in New York City and on eastern Long Island; since 1990, he has lived in Toronto and in southern Vermont. He has three sons—Colin, Brendan, and Everett—and four grandchildren. John Irving is married to Janet Turnbull Irving—formerly a Canadian publisher, who is now Mr. Irving’s literary agent in the U.S. His agent in Canada, and for the U.K., is Dean Cooke—at the Cooke Agency in Toronto. Mr. Irving is represented internationally by Nicki Kennedy at I.L.A. in London; his film agent is Robert Bookman at C.A.A. in Los Angeles.

In 2001, Mr. Irving was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Irving’s 70th birthday is March 2, 2012.(less)

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“…the consequences of sex are often more memorable than the act itself.” — 75 people liked it

“All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.” — 53 people liked it

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