We've been talking a lot about our favorite books by the author panelists for Forum Book Club - John Irving, Jonathan Franzen and Azar Nafisi. I love all these authors, so it's nearly impossible to choose a favorite work by just one of them, but I can say I'm most connected to Irving's work. My mom bought me A Prayer for Owen Meany when I was in 9th grade, and since then I've read everything he's written. I'm keeping my fingers crossed Irving might sign my recent score, a first edition copy of Owen Meany.
Rereading Meany, I was reminded of this beautiful passage:
"When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time -- the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes -- when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever -- there comes another day, and another specifically missing part."
Do you have a favorite passage from one of the panelists' books?
The Connecticut Forum Announces: John Irving to Join Azar Nafisi at The Forum Book Club Saturday, May 7, 2011
Novelist and screenwriter John Irving is one of the most popular and respected writers in the world. His novels have become American classics; each one is a publishing event.
Irving’s first international bestseller, The World According to Garp, introduced a world of readers to his inventive and expansive style, memorable characters and masterfully woven stories-within-stories. Garp won a National Book Award in 1980 and was made into a film starring Robin Williams.
Since Garp’s release, all of Irving’s novels, including Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, andA Widow for One Year, have been translated into over 30 languages and sold tens of millions of copies, and The Cider House Rules was turned into a movie in 1999 that won him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Irving has three screenplays in-progress; his 12th novel, Last Night in Twisted River, was released in 2009.
Irving has won the O. Henry Award and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1992 Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma and in 2001 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Watch Irving talk about the "Writer's Craft" below.
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