In One Person by John Irving

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. His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s 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.”

It's no Owen Meany but it's clearly an Irving novel. Europe, gender fluidity, family, New England, wrestling, death; love, loss, self discovery, novelist protagonist, teacher. It's like a recipe, but, just like enjoy my favourite recipes, so too do I enjoy John Irving's novels.

I liked this book more than I thought I would from the jacket description. This is the first John Irving I've ever read, so I don't have his previous novels to compare this book to.

I also don't write amazing reviews, and a lot of Irving's fans are well-read and can write a much better review than I, so I'm not going to attempt much.

I admit: the beginning of the book made me uncomfortable. I don't like reading much sex anyway in my fiction (it makes me blush or something), and this book had beyond the more widely accepted heterosexual experience. But then I did manage to get past it. And once I did, I believe that may be part of the author's goal: for the reader to accept the homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual experience as not unusual, not shocking.

It's always a delight to read about a character who has a completely, 100% different life than I do, especially one in a “real” setting (not fantasy or science fiction). Billy went to an amazing private college preparatory all-male school, and then went on to tour Europe, live in New York City, live in San Francisco and even return briefly to his hometown in New England. Not many people have this life. Couple that with Billy's coupling (ahem), and there's just little I can personally relate to.

The book is still great despite almost otherworldly characters. And they certainly are: you've got cousin Gerry the lesbian, grandpa the crossdresser, Kittredge the ... strange, Donna the transsexual, and so many others. It's hard to imagine their paths would all cross. There's definitely a sense of unreality, or this can't really happen-ness.

Toward the end of the book, the characters could have all ended up in a wild orgy in the town library, and I wouldn't have given it a second thought.

I'll be reading more John Irving in the future, and then I'll see how this book compares to his others.