In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constableβs girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos Countyβto Boston, to southern Vermont, to Torontoβpursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them.
In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted RiverβJohn Irvingβs twelfth novelβdepicts the recent half-century in the United States as βa living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.β From the novelβs taut opening sentenceββThe young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too longββto its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irvingβs breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp.
What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the authorβs unmistakable voiceβthe inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: βWe donβt always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanlyβas if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earthβthe same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.β
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