FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Irving fans might be surprised by this follow-up to the hugely successful A Widow for One Year. It's short! Weighing in at just over 300 pages, The Fourth Hand is the author's leanest novel in 25 years. Gone are the in-depth, Dickensian (and sometimes bombastic) character studies that endeared T. S. Garp and Owen Meany to millions of readers. Is this a good thing? Yes and no. What this novel lacks in character development, Irving more than makes up for in a bizarre, farcical, razor-sharp narrative that is, more often than not, wet-your-pants funny.

Patrick Wallingford is an obscenely good-looking television journalist whose biggest problem in the world is that women can't stop falling in love with him (except his wife, who has fallen deeply out of love with him). While he's on assignment in India, covering the death of a trapeze artist's husband at the Great Ganesh Circus, Patrick's hand is chomped off by a hungry lion. Millions of people witness this horrifying event, and Patrick becomes a worldwide object of pity (which helps him bed more women than he ever thought possible). Years later, he finds himself a candidate for a risky hand transplant operation. Enter Boston surgeon Dr. Nicholas Zajac, a brilliant hand specialist who has a penchant for hurling dog turds at unsuspecting rowers on the Charles River, and Doris Clausen, a Wisconsin widow who wants to give Patrick her husband's hand -- for a price. What happens when these baroque worlds collide is an immensely readable tale that runs the gamut of human emotions.

In John Irving's novels, truth resides not in beauty but in the absurd. His characters are repeatedly tested under extreme and, at times, grotesque physical and emotional conditions, yet he never throws them into a situation they can't handle. Though the characters are not as well drawn here, as in, say, The Cider House Rules, their struggle to understand themselves in a world imbued with violence is no less powerful. Though perhaps a minor work in Irving's oeuvre, The Fourth Hand is a major story about the redemptive power of love and the all-too-human desire for connection. (Stephen Bloom)

ANNOTATION

The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: "How can anyone identify a dream of the future?" The answer: "Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: "How can anyone identify a dream of the future?" The answer: "Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love."

While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation's first hand transplant; meanwhile, in the distracting aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, the surgeon is seduced by his housekeeper. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband's left hand - that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy.

SYNOPSIS

The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: "How can anyone identify a dream of the future?" The answer: "Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love."

FROM THE CRITICS

Chris Bohjalian - Washington Post Book World

...a rich and deeply moving tale, and (in the best sense) vintage John Irving: a story of two very disparate people, and the strange and unexpected ways we may grow.

Publishers Weekly

As the world watches, handsome TV journalist Patrick Wallingford, who is obsessed with minutely described one-night stands, has his hand eaten by a lion at the Gnesh Circus. (The gnesh is an Indian symbol of new beginnings). Viewer Doris and her husband Otto are obsessed with the Green Bay Packers and with having a child. Doris cajoles Otto into willing his left hand to Patrick and surprise! Otto soon (accidentally?) kills himself. Famous hand surgeon Nicholas Zajak is, for his part, obsessed with dog feces also described in endless detail which he scoops up with his old lacrosse stick and hurls at rowers on the Charles River. Zajak attaches Otto's hand to Patrick, and Doris demands visitation rights with Otto's hand, as well as with Patrick's child-producing equipment. Though their motivations remain unclear, all three characters are redeemed by their newfound obsessions with winning the love of their sons. Culp's clear, pleasant, middle-range reading voice, appropriately ironic tone and fun, exaggerated Boston accents are easy on the ears. Simultaneous release with Random House hardcover (Forecasts, June 25). (July) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Die-hard fans of John Irving, especially those who share his taste for the grotesque and for irony as broad as a barn, may find much to like in this fable about a shallow, passive newscaster named Patrick Wallingford who covers disasters and then becomes one himself when a lion bites his hand off. Wallingford is alleged to be irresistible to women; a young widow in Wisconsin is alleged to want Wallingford to father a baby upon her and then receive her husband's transplanted hand, to which she will then expect visitation rights. If Irving ever aspired to subtlety or true comedy he no longer does, but this is vintage Irving, and at least the performance by Jason Culp is unusually appealing, except for his unfortunate way with a Boston accent. B.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews