The Fourth Hand - Softcover

Irving, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552771090 ISBN 13: 9780552771092

Publisher: Black Swan, 2002

Synopsis

'Imagine a young man on his way to a less-than-thirty-second event - the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age.'

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. 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...

About this title

Review:

The Fourth Hand is one of John Irving's finest novels to date. A man loses his hand. His search to become whole again soon makes him realise that it takes more than a new limb to find fulfilment. The novel begins with one of Irving's typically surreal scenarios: "Imagine a young man on his way to a less-than-thirty-second event--the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age." The unfortunate young man is the "irrefutably good-looking" television journalist Patrick Wallingford. While filing a report from a circus in India, Wallingford's left hand is eaten by a lion. Millions on TV watch the grisly scene. As friends and former lovers watch the disappearance of the reporter's hand, it becomes clear that:

Patrick Wallingford initiated nothing, yet he inspired sexual unrest and unnatural longing--even as he was caught in the act of feeding a lion his left hand. He was a magnet to women of all ages and types; even lying unconscious, he was a danger to the female sex

Bereft of his left hand, Wallingford ("the lion guy") finds that both his career and his already active sex life blossom. But "Dr. Nicholas M. Zajac, a hand surgeon with Schatzman, Gingeleskie, Mengerink & Associates", soon seduces him with the offer of a hand transplant. Unfortunately, "there were some strings attached to the donor hand" in the shape of its former owner's widow, Mrs Clausen from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Wallingford soon discovers that the transplant is only the beginning of his problems, as he goes in search of what transpires to be his "fourth hand". The Fourth Hand is a wonderfully funny and compulsive novel, which manages to encapsulate Irving's hallmark black humour with an incredibly tender pathos and gentle wisdom. Wallingford is a marvellous, flawed protagonist, a foolish, vain but ultimately decent man, while Zajac is one of Irving's finest comic creations. Above all, The Fourth Hand is a wonderful and lyrical love story, which is destined to become a classic. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

"A rich and deeply moving tale... Vintage Irving" (Washington Post)

"A beguiling tale of love and redemption" (Time Out)

"Peerless... Writing without a wasted second" (Guardian)

"Articulate, clever, quirky, more than a touch profound and very funny" (Mirror)

"Sharp and very, very funny, this is another of Irving's fiercely original meditations of life's inherent strangeness" (Uncut)

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0552771090
• ISBN 13: 9780552771092
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384