The Fourth Hand (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of The Fourth Hand Friday, July 31 2009.

• The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: “How can anyone identify a dream of the future?” The answer: “Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love." While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant; meanwhile, in the distracting aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, the surgeon is seduced by his housekeeper. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband’s left hand – that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy. This is how John Irving’s tenth novel begins; it seems, at first, to be a comedy, perhaps a satire, almost certainly a sexual farce. Yet, in the end, The Fourth Hand is as realistic and emotionally moving as any of Mr. Irving’s previous novels – including The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany , and A Widow for One Year – or his Oscar-winning screenplay of The Cider House Rules . The Fourth Hand is characteristic of John Irving’s seamless storytelling and further explores some of the author’s recurring themes – loss, grief, love as redemption. But this novel also breaks new ground; it offers a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Shelfari edited the contributors of The Fourth Hand Wednesday, July 22 2009.

• Added a contributor: John Irving: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of The Fourth Hand Thursday, July 16 2009.

• IMAGINE A YOUNG MAN on his way to a less-than-thirty-second event-the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age.