In One Person - Softcover

Irving, John

3.7

26,874 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1476708479 ISBN 13: 9781476708478

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2013

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Paperback. Pub Date :2013-03-19 Pages: 440 Language: English Publisher: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers A New York Times bestselling novel of desire. secrecy. and sexual identity. In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love-tormented . funny. and affecting-and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy. the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person. tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a sexual suspect. a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of terminal cases. The World According to Garp.In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy's friends and lovers-a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least. In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself worthwhile.

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Review:

"This tender exploration of nascent desire, of love and loss, manages to be sweeping, brilliant, political, provocative, tragic, and funny--it is precisely the kind of astonishing alchemy we associate with a John Irving novel. The unfolding of the AIDS epidemic in the United States in the '80s was the defining moment for me as a physician. With my patients' deaths, almost always occurring in the prime of life, I would find myself cataloging the other losses--namely, what these people might have offered society had they lived the full measure of their days: their art, their literature, the children they might have raised. In One Person is the novel that for me will define that era. A profound truth is arrived at in these pages. It is Irving at his most daring, at his most ambitious. It is America and American writing, both at their very best."
--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone and My Own Country

"In One Person is a novel that makes you proud to be human. It is a book that not only accepts but also loves our differences. From the beginning of his career, Irving has always cherished our peculiarities--in a fierce, not a saccharine, way. Now he has extended his sympathies--and ours--still further into areas that even the misfits eschew. Anthropologists say that the interstitial--whatever lies between two familiar opposites--is usually declared either taboo or sacred. John Irving in this magnificent novel--his best and most passionate since The World According to Garp--has sacralized what lies between polarizing genders and orientations. And have I mentioned it is also a gripping page-turner and a beautifully constructed work of art?"
--Edmund White, author of City Boy and Genet: A Biography

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST 2013 Lambda Literary Bisexual Literature Award

This searching, deeply affecting novel reaffirms the centrality of Irving as the voice of social justice and compassion in contemporary American literature. His work has been indispensible over the past four decades, and it will prove more important, more urgently resonant and more prescient, in the decades to come.
Steven Hayward, "The Globe and Mail"
At once intimate and epic, broadly funny and emotionally piercing.... Irving is simply doing what he has always done, and what he does best: telling a bold, quirky, fundamentally human story, bigger than life.
"The Vancouver Sun"
A rich and absorbing book, even beautiful, and probably the most different book of Irving s long career.
"Esquire"
""
Irving at his best: unbearably sad, unforgettably narrated, painfully human.
"USA Today"
""
Billy Abbott is a character to set alongside those indelible Irving creations of the past, Garp and Owen Meany and Homer Wells.... You root for him from the outset. And when his story visits on him some of the more outrageous fates that Irving can conjure, you don t give up on him . It is another of this writer s bold hymns to individuality, to the great American quest of self-discovery.... As the book triumphantly suggests, difference is one problem shared by everybody.
"The Observer"
In One Person, as a story about sexual differences among people, has real potential to help effect positive change for gay and trans people, especially in the US. This is the novel I selfishly wish Irving had written 25 years ago.
"Xtra!" (Toronto)
Irving s gift is to make us care about characters that mainstream society relegates to the margins . Heart-rending. Irving fans will welcomeIn One Person.
"Toronto Star"
Irving is a master at getting his sense of place to feel special . Ribald, engaging, measured and slightly eccentric. In other words, it s John Irving being John Irving.
"National Post"
""
In its fierceness and its joyfulness, In One Person has the feeling of The World According to Garp.... In One Person gives a lot. It s funny, as you would expect. It s risky in what it exposes.
Jeanette Winterson, "The New York Times Book Review"
This tender exploration of nascent desire, of love and loss, manages to be sweeping, brilliant, political, provocative, tragic, and funny it is precisely the kind of astonishing alchemy we associate with a John Irving novel.The unfolding of the AIDS epidemic in the United States in the 80s was the defining moment for me as a physician. With my patients deaths, almost always occurring in the prime of life, I would find myself cataloging theotherlosses namely, what these people might have offered society had they lived the full measure of their days: their art, their literature, the children they might have raised. In One Personis the novel that for me will define that era.A profound truth is arrived at in these pages. It is Irving at his most daring, at his most ambitious.It is America and American writing, both at their very best.
Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone and My Own Country
In One Person is a novel that makes you proud to be human. It is a book that not only accepts but also loves our differences. From the beginning of his career, Irving has always cherished our peculiarities in a fierce, not a saccharine, way. Now he has extended his sympathies and ours still further into areas that even the misfits eschew. Anthropologists say that the interstitial whatever lies between two familiar opposites isusually declared either taboo or sacred. John Irving in this magnificent novel his best and most passionate since The World According to Garp has sacralized what lies between polarizing genders and orientations. And have I mentioned it is also a gripping page-turner and a beautifully constructed work of art?
Edmund White, author of City Boy andGenet: A Biography"

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST 2013 - Lambda Literary Bisexual Literature Award
"This searching, deeply affecting novel...reaffirms the centrality of Irving as the voice of social justice and compassion in contemporary American literature. His work has been indispensible over the past four decades, and it will prove more important, more urgently resonant and more prescient, in the decades to come."
--Steven Hayward, The Globe and Mail
"At once intimate and epic, broadly funny and emotionally piercing.... Irving is simply doing what he has always done, and what he does best: telling a bold, quirky, fundamentally human story, bigger than life."
--The Vancouver Sun

"A rich and absorbing book, even beautiful, and probably the most different book of Irving's long career."
--Esquire

"Irving at his best: unbearably sad, unforgettably narrated, painfully human."
--USA Today

"Billy Abbott is a character to set alongside those indelible Irving creations of the past, Garp and Owen Meany and Homer Wells.... You root for him from the outset. And when his story visits on him some of the more outrageous fates that Irving can conjure, you don't give up on him.... It is another of this writer's bold hymns to individuality, to the great American quest of self-discovery.... As the book triumphantly suggests, difference is one problem shared by everybody."
--The Observer
"In One Person, as a story about sexual differences among people, has real potential to help effect positive change for gay and trans people, especially in the US. This is the novel I selfishly wish Irving had written 25 years ago."
--Xtra! (Toronto)
"Irving's gift is to make us care about characters that mainstream society relegates to the margins.... Heart-rending. Irving fans will welcome In One Person ."
--Toronto Star
"Irving is a master at getting his sense of place to feel special.... Ribald, engaging, measured and slightly eccentric. In other words, it's John Irving being John Irving."
--National Post

"In its fierceness and its joyfulness, In One Person has the feeling of The World According to Garp.... In One Person gives a lot. It's funny, as you would expect. It's risky in what it exposes."
--Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times Book Review
"This tender exploration of nascent desire, of love and loss, manages to be sweeping, brilliant, political, provocative, tragic, and funny--it is precisely the kind of astonishing alchemy we associate with a John Irving novel. The unfolding of the AIDS epidemic in the United States in the '80s was the defining moment for me as a physician. With my patients' deaths, almost always occurring in the prime of life, I would find myself cataloging the other losses--namely, what these people might have offered society had they lived the full measure of their days: their art, their literature, the children they might have raised. In One Person is the novel that for me will define that era. A profound truth is arrived at in these pages. It is Irving at his most daring, at his most ambitious. It is America and American writing, both at their very best."
--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone and My Own Country
"In One Person is a novel that makes you proud to be human. It is a book that not only accepts but also loves our differences. From the beginning of his career, Irving has always cherished our peculiarities--in a fierce, not a saccharine, way. Now he has extended his sympathies--and ours--still further into areas that even the misfits eschew. Anthropologists say that the interstitial--whatever lies between two familiar opposites--is usually declared either taboo or sacred. John Irving in this magnificent novel--his best and most passionate since The World According to Garp--has sacralized what lies between polarizing genders and orientations. And have I mentioned it is also a gripping page-turner and a beautifully constructed work of art?"
--Edmund White, author of City Boy and Genet: A Biography

About the Author:

The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving's fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving's novels are now translated into 35 languages, and he has had nine international bestsellers. Worldwide, the Irving novel most often called "an American classic" is A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), the portrayal of an enduring friendship at a time when the Vietnam War had its most divisive effect on the United States.
In 1992, John Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (He competed as a wrestler for 20 years, until he was 34, and coached the sport until he was 47.) In 2000, Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules, a Lasse Hallstrom film that earned seven Academy Award nominations. Tod Williams wrote and directed The Door in the Floor, the 2004 film adapted from Irving's ninth novel, A Widow for One Year.

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