John Irving’s Rich, Lyrical ‘Last Night in Twisted River’

In a logging communityin the north woods of New Englanda dismal, uninviting camp on the banks of Twisted Rivera widowed cook works in the dininglodge, concocting the Italian dishes (Sicilian, really) that have won him acertain level of respect from the workers. Here in the cookhouse, he watchesover his 12-year-old son, Daniel, a cautious, curious child who has seen littleoutside the often cruel way of life in the logging camps. Together with his oldfriend, Ketchuma burly, crass and fiercely loyal manand an American Indiannamed Jane, the cook and his son endure the harsh conditions of Twisted River,talking about a time when they will leave but never really taking the necessarysteps…until, that is, the violent events of one nighttheir last night inTwisted Riverforce them to flee, pursued by the malicious local sheriff. Overthe span of five decades, the cook and his son move from place to place,assuming new identities and abandoning their lives, aided only by theirincreasingly libertarian friend Ketchum. 

In a June 2009 interviewwith Sam Tanenhaus, editor of TheNew York Times Book Review, novelistJohn Irving revealed an early inspiration for Last Night in TwistedRiver(Random House): a stanza from that old Bob Dylan song, “Tangled Up in Blue”“Ihad a job in the great north woods/ Working as a cook for a spell/ But I neverdid like it all that much/ And one day the ax just fell.” In that moment, thelast sentence of Last Night in TwistedRiver came to him, as his last sentences and final chapters alwaysdo“fixed like a piece of music that you are writing toward.”

Irving’s books are long, layered and epic inscope, often spanning generations and decades, with hosts of charactersmarching in and out without a hint of significance until, at pivotal moments,they alter the course of the story. LastNight in Twisted River is no exception; at nearly 600 pages, it requires aserious investment of time and thought. Irvinghas a gift for saturating his stories with the types of seemingly routinedetails that become so obviously important in future events that the entireexperience of reading is simultaneously reflective and surprising. In Last Night in Twisted River, perhapsmore so than in his other novels, sudden shifts in chronology reveal theoutcome of present or future events, or the end of relationships that are justbeginning, often leaving the reader bereft of hope for the characters’ futures.The once elegant composition suddenly becomes a cacophony of mangledsituations. This conscious foreshadowing is one of Irving’s strongest literary devices in thebook. Armed with knowledge about the plot, readers are forced to focus onelements other than the story line: Daniel’s need to write, the cook’s selflessdevotion to his family, and that ever-present theme in Irving’s work, the fear of losing the ones welove.

Longtime Irving fans may find the autobiographical traces of Irving in Daniel’scharacter dizzying, even frustrating at times. What does it mean? What is he telling us about himself? Can we reallyknow Irvingthrough his work? And the throwbacks to Irving’s earlier work are astonishinglyclear. Yes, there is a bear. There is high-school wrestling at a prestigiousboys’ school. A small hospital in Mainethat performs abortions. There is a character incensed by the war in Vietnam (and,later, the actions and policies of the Bush administration). There are youngmenboys, reallydiscovering and exploring their sexuality. And, of course,there is the father consumed by his need to protect his son. But, as alwayswith Irving,things aren’t exactly as they seem, and part of the great pleasure of readinghis books, and Last Night in TwistedRiver, particularly, is finding out why.

The stories we hear aschildren take on new meaning in the context of adulthooda bear isn’t really abear, a home isn’t always a refuge and the people we think we know best harbortheir own secrets. Last Night in TwistedRiver is darkly comedic and tediously rich, from its dramatic firstsentence to its lyrical endingone of Irving’smost satisfying dénouements.