Last Night In Twisted River

In 1954; in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire; an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives; forced to run from Coos County - to Boston; to southern Vermont; to Toronto - pursued 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 River - John Irving's twelfth novel - depicts the recent half-century in the United States as 'a living replica of Coos County; where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course'. From the novel's taut opening sentence - 'The young Canadian; who could not have been more than fifteen; had hesitated too long' - to 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 Irving's breakthrough bestseller; The World According to Garp. What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author's unmistakable voice - the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel; John Irving writes: 'We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes; people fall into our lives cleanly - as if out of the sky; or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth - the same sudden way we lose people; who once seemed they would always be part of our lives'.