Three times a lady | A Widow for One Year (Deluxe, Signed Edition)

Excellent | A Widow for One Year (Deluxe, Signed Edition) | John, W Irving

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	• A Widow for One Year (Deluxe, Signed Edition) John, W Irving Unicycle Press, Incorporated, 1998 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 580 reviews view larger image
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A Great Half of a Book

John Irving has once again written a story with fully realized, complex characters. Those who have read his previous books will find him delving into familiar themes: sexual coming of age, unspeakable tragedy, and the seedier side of European culture (in this case, Amsterdam's red light district). The results are mixed, with the beginning of the book far more interesting and satisfying than the end (small wonder the movie "The Door in the Floor" is based only on the first half of Irving's tome).

The story begins in the summer of 1958 on Long Island. Sixteen year old Eddie O'Hare takes a job working an assistant in the home of children's author/illustrator Ted Cole. It's a sad household with Ted and his wife, Marion, struggling to cope with the deaths of their two teenage sons years earlier. Marion is especially depressed and is unable to show any affection towards their young daughter, Ruth. She's also obsessed with the many pictures of her late sons that hang throughout the house. Ted dotes on Ruth, but is a flagrant womanizer, using his celebrity to attract mothers and their daughters into his studio to "pose" for him. Things become even more complicated when Marion has an affair with young Eddie.

Were the story to remain focused on the odd triangle of Marion, Ted and Eddie, it would stand alone as one of Irving's best novels. The relationships are complex and engaging, and Marion's inability to move on after the deaths of her sons is heart wrenching. Irving, however, chooses to make "A Widow for One Year" Ruth's story, following her into adulthood where she becomes successful as an author (as does Eddie on a smaller scale), but mostly unsuccessful in her personal relationships. It's a poor choice as Eddie, Ted and especially Marion are far more interesting characters. After taking a sordid and unnecessary turn through the red light district of Amsterdam, Ruth's story runs out of steam in a predictable and, sadly, emotionally flat ending.

First half: 5 stars
Second half: 1 star

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Three times a lady

Dysfunction is in the blood of the Coles in John Irving's remarkable "A Widow for one year". His novels reads like a patchwork achievement copying with many characters in three different periods in the life of the protagonist Ruth Cole, when she deals with things like grieving, lost and tragedy.

We first meet the Coles in the Summer of 1958, when she is only four and her mother Marion is dealing with the death of her older brothers in a car accident. The woman, always described as `a difficult woman', believes she cannot be a good mother to her daughter, who, by the way, was planed as a way of replacing the dead boys. Depressed and unable to lead a normal life, Marion embarks in a love affair with her husband's teenage assistant.

The tale moves fast to 1990, when Ruth is a famous writer who is unable to have relationships with men. Again, she comes across her mother's ex-lover, Eddie O'Hare, who is also a writer, albeit less successful than her. Both they discuss Marion and what may have happened to them. The final part of the story is set five years later, when Ruth seems to be finally ready to fall in love.

However difficult it is to say that Irving's novel has a plot, it is easier to believe he has written a chronicle of many years in Ruth's life. In this case, there are the recurrent people who surrounds her -- like her alcoholic father (who is also a very famous children writer), her friends (notoriously the delightful Hannah) and Eddie (who is on and off her life from time to time). In this fashion, the novel is a great achievement, once the characters are very believable.

Of course, the most interesting character is Ruth who shares many resemblances to her mother -- mostly psychological. It is easy too see how her childhood experiences --many from when she was four -- affect her throughout her life -- mostly when it comes to being in love or men in general.

The supporting characters are very human as well -- an achievement that not many writers can reach nowadays. Marion, for instance, vanishes from the novel for about 200 pages, but we still can feel her presence and influence (mostly in Ruth and Eddie) all the time. Not only her daughter wonders what may have happened to her, but so does the reader.

Not only is Irving able to write a great story but he also has a great command of the language building beautiful sentences that have a dramatic effect without being corny. His talents make it worthy to follow three different periods in the life of this lady. A novel recommended to those who like a great storytelling.

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Excellent

It is the summer of 1958, and 16 year old Eddie O'Hare takes a job as writer's assistant with the womanizing and calculating author Ted Cole. Ted's wife Marion, is deeply grieving the tragic death of her teenage sons, and is emotionally unavailable to both her husband and her 4 year old daughter Ruth. Eddie is cast adrift intot this complex household, and begins a passionate love affair with Marion. He unwittingly becomes a pawn in her abandonment of her family.
Fast forward 35 years, and Eddie meets Ruth, who has become a writer herself, and who is searching for clues about her mother, whom she hasn't seen since that fateful summer. The story is told in Irving's cynical voice, and abounds with stock characters who only help to make the protagonists more real. From the first few moments of reading about Ted, Marion, Ruth and Eddie, the reader begins to care about what happens to them. Irving takes us deep into the novel, and does not disappoint.

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Purpose or Meaning?

Widow for one year was a good book. For the most part, I liked it. I liked the characters and the story. It was nice to read a book where you don't just get to see the character at one moment or time in their life; instead you're getting to see them through-out their lives. However, I struggled to find meaning or a purpose for this novel. Usually after I finish with a book the moral or the lesson is pretty clear, however with this book, I'm not sure I grasped why it was written or why I'm any better for having read it.

In part one we find Ruth at only 4 years of age, with her father horny and selfish like a school boy and her mother screwing around with a 17 year old assistant of her husbands. They're all living in a home that is a shadow of what was, before the death's of her older twin brothers, years prior. In part two we find Ruth thirty years later, a writer with a life that seems to be missing something- perhaps it's her mother who left her at the end of the summer she was 4, or a father who can be counted on, or a committed relationship. We see the woman Ruth has turned into and how the past shaped who she is. In part three, 5 years later, we find Ruth at a time when it seems her life is finally falling into place. And we see if there's any healing in life or any happy endings.

Again, I did for the most part enjoy the book. But I'm still not sure the theme is apparent as it should be to a reader. I'd have liked to really come away from this book with something more than I did. And suffice it to say, I'm not compelled to read more of Irving's books, as this was my first of his.

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