Chapters (63)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ACT I EARLY SIGNS
- 1. AN UNMADE MOVIE
- 2. FIRST LOVE
- 3. A FIRST-NAME BASIS
- 4. DETERMINED NOT TO LEARN
- 5. BUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN ASPEN?
- 6. LITTLE RAY
- 7. ALL ABOUT SEX
- 8. HAVE YOU SEEN THEM?
- 9. MOVIES, GIRLFRIENDS, FOREIGNNESS, OUTLIERS
- 10. NOT TARZAN
- 11. SMALLNESS AS A BURDEN
- 12. INTENDED FOR LITTLE RAY AND ME
- 13. THE SNOWSHOER KISS
- 14. A JUDGMENT CALL
- 15. SEEING THINGS
- 16. WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT
- 17. SON OF THE BRIDE
- 18. WHAT THE STONE SPARROWS SAW
- ACT II THE HONEYMOON ON THE CLIFF
- 19. “I SAW ME IN YOUR EYES”
- 20. A LITTLE BEHIND GIRLS HER AGE, SOCIALLY; DEFINITELY AHEAD OF; DEFINITELY BEHIND
- 21. IN CONTROL
- 22. MY SECOND-MOST UNMARRIAGEABLE GIRLFRIEND
- 23. “ALMOST PERFECT” OR “NO STRINGS ATTACHED”
- 24. MELANCHOLIC ENOUGH
- 25. THE “POLICE REPORT”
- 26. THE GETAWAY DRIVER
- 27. SEXUAL POLITICS, A FIRE, JEALOUSY
- 28. STILL GROWING
- 29. THE GOOD SHEPHERD
- ACT III RULES FOR GHOSTS
- 30. THE WOMAN WITH THE BABY CARRIAGE
- 31. WHERE HAVE THE BANANAS GONE?
- 32. A TURN IN THE ROAD
- 33. JUST SMALL ENOUGH
- 34. OUR MARINE
- 35. AT THE WHALE SHIP
- 36. BOOK SIGNINGS
- 37. THINGS TO DO WITH A PENIS
- 38. PLAGUE SONG
- 39. WENGEN
- 40. THE NIGHT OF THE SANTAS
- 41. STARTING SOMETHING
- 42. A NORMAL LIFE
- 43. A BOHEMIAN LIFESTYLE
- 44. MEN WHO SHOULD BE CASTRATED
- 45. LOGE PEAK
- 46. “FOUND YOU!”
- 47. WRITTEN IN THE SNOW
- 48. FIVE YEARS, FOUR MOVIES
- 49. NOT A GHOST
- 50. EM AS ISHMAEL
- 51. “O CANADA”
- 52. THE LESBIANS’ CHILDREN
- 53. THE VOICE ON THE SUBWAY; THE SILENCE IN THE ROCK GARDEN
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- ALSO BY JOHN IRVING
- Tom Best
- Kristin Cochrane
- Dean Cooke
- Emily Copeland
- Giustino De Blasio
- Amy Edelman
- Kay Eldredge
- Gail Godwin
- Ron Hansen
- Khalida Hassan
- Brendan Irving
- Colin Irving
- Eva Everett Irving
- Janet Irving
- Jonathan Karp
- Bayard Kennett
- Gen. Charles Krulak
- Jon O’Brien
- Anne Tate Pearce
- Dick Peller
- Anna von Planta
- Theo Salter
- Dr. Martin Schwartz
- Anna Scott, Aspen Historical Society
- William Scoular
- Jackie Seow
- Nick Spengler
- Cleve Thurber
- Grant Turner
- Martha Turner
- Dr. Abraham Verghese
- Kate Wells
- Edmund White
- Kip Williams
- Bill Wolvin
And all the good times at the Hotel Jerome.
And special thanks to Geri Lipschultz—my student in the fiction workshop at Iowa in 1974, and my longtime friend. In 1982, I read Geri’s first novel in manuscript. I wrote her about it; I recommended some agents. There was a character named Em, a mime in a New York club. Geri’s mime named Em must have gotten into my head, because—forty years later—I created a very different character, but my nonspeaking pantomimist Em owes a debt to Geri Lipschultz, whose mime named Em came first and never went away. Thank you, Geri.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times, winning in 1980 for The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for In One Person. Internationally renowned, his books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. A Prayer for Owen Meany is his bestselling novel, in every language.
A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto. The Last Chairlift is his fifteenth novel.
SimonandSchuster.co.uk
@ScribnerUK
ALSO BY JOHN IRVING
Setting Free the Bears
The Water-Method Man
The 158-Pound Marriage
The World According to Garp
The Hotel New Hampshire
The Cider House Rules
A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Son of the Circus
The Imaginary Girlfriend
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
A Widow for One Year
My Movie Business
The Cider House Rules: A Screenplay
The Fourth Hand
A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound
Until I Find You
Last Night in Twisted River
In One Person
Avenue of Mysteries