A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

My Aunt Martha—like many Americans—could become quite tyrannical in the defense of democracy.

Canon Mackie says I worry about “mere words” too much. Mere words?

however tightly or loosely she bound him in the broad, cotton swathes, Owen complained. “IT’S TOO TIGHT, I CAN’T BREATHE!” he would say, coughing. Or else he would cry out, “I FEEL A DRAFT!” Barb Wiggin worked over him with such a grim, humorless sense of purpose that you would have thought she was embalming him; perhaps that’s what she thought of as she swaddled him—to calm herself.

“Honestly, who thinks up these things?” Grandmother asked. “Peckerheads,” said Hester, who was forever expanding her vocabulary.

Oh, there’s big bucks in interpreting the gospel for idiots—or in having idiots interpret the gospel for you—and

Remember when the country was killing itself in Vietnam, and the folks at home were outraged at the length and cleanliness of the protesters’ hair?

It was Owen Meany who taught me that any good book is always in motion—from the general to the specific, from the particular to the whole, and back again.

Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean—make sure they know what they mean!