A Son of the Circus Paperback - 1997
by John Irving
A Hindi film star . . . an American missionary . . . twins separated at birth . . . a dwarf chauffeur . . . a serial killer . . . all are on a collision course. In the tradition of A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving's characters transcend nationality. They are misfits--coming from everywhere, belonging nowhere. Set almost entirely in India, this is John Irving's most ambitious novel and a major publishing event.
About this book
Set in India with a complicated cast of characters including a Hindu film star, an American missionary, twins separated at birth, and a dwarf chauffeur, the plot of A Son of the Circus revolves around prostitutes murdered by a transsexual serial killer. The murders bring together a host of outcasts. Entertaining and hefty, the over 600-page novel, Irving's eighth, received mixed reviews. The artwork for the original dust jacket for A Son of the Circus was by Honi Werner, who created iconic covers for a broad range of literary and mystery books by authors including Thomas Berger, Bebe Moore Campbell, E.L. Doctorow, Isabel Allende, Philippa Gregory, Peter Hoeg, and Donna Leon.
Random House printed Irving’s three early novels before he moved to Dutton for his first best-selling success, The World According to Garp (1978). Irving followed with other best-sellers, The Cider House Rules (1985) and A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) before returning to Random House to print what is said to be his most complicated and difficult book - A Son of the Circus.First line
Usually, the dwarfs kept bringing him back-back to the circus and back to India.
From the jacket flap
"A SON OF THE CIRCUS IS COMIC GENIUS....GET READY FOR IRVING'S MOST RAUCOUS NOVEL TO DATE."
--The Boston Globe
"Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla, reared in Bombay by maverick foes of tradition, educated in Vienna, married to an Austrian and long a resident of Toronto, is a 59-year-old without a country, culture or religion to call his own....The novel may not be 'about' India, but Irving's imagined India, which Daruwalla visits periodically, is a remarkable achievement--a pandemonium of servants and clubmen, dwarf clowns and transvestite whores, missionaries and movie stars. This is a land of energetic colliding egos, of modern media clashing with ancient cultures, of broken sexual boundaries."
--New York Newsday
"HIS MOST DARING AND MOST VIBRANT NOVEL...The story of circus-as-India is told with gusto and delightful irreverence."
--Bharati Mukherjee
The Washington Post Book World
"Ringmaster Irving introduces act after act, until three (or more) rings are awhirl at a lunatic pace....[He] spills characters from his imagination as agilely as improbable numbers of clowns pile out of a tiny car....His Bombay and his Indian characters are vibrant and convincing."
--The Wall Street Journal
"IRRESISTIBLE...POWERFUL...Irving's gift for dialogue shines."
--Chicago Tribune
"From the Paperback edition.
First Edition Identification
A Son of the Circus was first published in August 1994 by Random House. First editions of Random House titles of this term have "first edition" on the copyright page, and a number line starting with a 2 (2nd printings have the same number line, no “first edition.”) First British edition was published by Bloomsbury the same year.
Details
- Title A Son of the Circus
- Author John Irving
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Reprint
- Pages 672
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Ballantine Books, New York
- Date June 23, 1997
- ISBN 9780345417992 / 0345417992
- Weight 1.7 lbs (0.77 kg)
- Dimensions 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.6 in (20.83 x 13.97 x 4.06 cm)
- Library of Congress subjects Mystery fiction, India
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 97093187
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
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