Jennifer read and liked Jeff's review of Last Night in Twisted River:

"Oh my, my, my! I really don’t even know where to begin with a review of “Last Night at Twisted River.” Was it great? No. Was it good? Yeah. Was it bad? Certainly not. It was … well, it was John Irving being uber-John Irving with all of the �...more Oh my, my, my! I really don’t even know where to begin with a review of “Last Night at Twisted River.” Was it great? No. Was it good? Yeah. Was it bad? Certainly not. It was … well, it was John Irving being uber-John Irving with all of the “usual suspects” making a cameo appearance:

- New England setting: Check
- Infidelity: Check
- A Brief Stint at Exeter: Check
- Fear of Losing a Child: Check, check, and double-check
- Bears: Check
- Wrestling: Check
- Dismemberment of a limb or body part: Check
- Semi-colons galore: Big checkeroo!

The fact is I love John Irving and will pretty much forgive him anything, including his last two novels – “The Fourth Hand” (which peters out and almost collapses in on itself) and “Until I Find You” (which desperately needed a 200 page shave). “Twisted River” falls prey to some of John’s excesses, but it is, in many ways, a return to form for, in my opinion, one of America’s greatest living writers. "Twisted River" doesn’t have the punch, the weight, the humor, or the sensitivity of “Owen Meany,” “Garp,” “Cider House,” or “Hotel New Hampshire;” however, it will please people who love John Irving for being John Irving.

“Twisted River” spans five decades and tells the story of a cook and his son who live on the run from a “crazed” New England cop after they accidentally kill the deputy’s girlfriend. The inciting event, killing the girlfriend who they mistake (grab your hats John Irving fans!) for a bear, is a great set-up. The problem is that Carl, the drunken, renegade cop who is supposedly pursuing them, is such a NON-character in the book that I never really bought into the conceit that he was someone to be feared. Irving is a talented creator of character and situation, but Carl is simply not ominous or “crazed” enough for me to believe that he would pursue two men over two countries through five decades. Although a lot of fantastic things transpire while the cook and his son are “on the lamb,” the reason for their fugitive life just never seemed real or truly threatening to me until the VERY late denouement.

If Carl is underdeveloped to the point of anemia, the character of Ketchum, a river driver who befriends the cook and aids in his flight, is a spectacularly well-developed character. Ketchum is a beautifully flawed character who truly becomes the emotional center of the book. He is a perfect John Irving character – colorful, impulsive, brooding, conflicted, and damaged.

When not focused on Ketchum, “Twisted River” is at its best when the author writes about writing. The cook’s son, Danny, ultimately becomes a world famous writer, very much akin to John Irving himself. I’ve always thought that John is one of the best metafictional writers writing today; that is, he consummately writes about characters who write. You can tell Irving has so much fun with the metafictional components of this book, deliberately blurring the lines between Danny’s fiction and his own.

All in all, I agree with many of the reviews already posted on goodreads. The book starts slow, ends polemically, but has a substantial and meaty middle. It had some elements I simply loved and many parts that I could have done without. It is a love letter to people who like John Irving, but not the book I would recommend to someone coming to the author for the very first time.
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