Monday, December 10, 2007

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

First sentence:

"The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born--we weren't even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Franny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lilly and Egg."

Description:

"'The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels.'

So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they "dream on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Son of the Circus and A Prayer for Owen Meany."

My thoughts:

Like other Irving books I've read, this one was both funny and sad as well as quirky at times. The story kept me engaged as I wanted to find out what happens next to Franny, John, Frank, Lilly, Egg, etc.

Date read: 12/2/2007
Book #: 107
Rating: 4* = great
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 034540047X
ISBN-13: 9780345400475
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Year: 1995
# of Pages: 419
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing Page

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