Tom Lynch

John Irving's eleventh novel, the tender, melancholic and ambitious "Until I Find You," seems like the next step for the author of "The World According to Garp" and "The Cider House Rules." It's a decidedly personal story about Jack Burns, a Hollywood actor left with only his memories of trying to find his missing father as a child. Irving's sweeping narrative style--abundant with charming idiosyncrasies--brings his subtle humor to life against the backdrop of Irving's now-signature sadness, as we feel the author himself walking through the novel's pages. (Reportedly, Irving originally wrote the novel in first-person, only to change his mind after he turned the work into his editor.) "Until I Find You"'s Jack Burns is the typical Irving hero--self-possessed like Garp and an idealist like "Cider House"'s Homer--and Irving's themes of lost childhood, or better, stolen childhood, dominate more than ever.

John Irving reads from "Until I Find You" on August 16 at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 South State, (312)747-4300, at 6pm. Free.

(2005-08-09)

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