Until I Find You

Review by Breanne Boland August 25, 2005 Issue

Oh, John Irving, you’ve long been one of my favorite authors. You had me from The 158-Pound Marriage. We grew closer with A Widow for One Year and The World According to Garp. We’ve spent many years together now, and for the most part, we’ve had a long and happy union. Sure, there were missteps. The Fourth Hand made me rethink things, but ultimately I came back, and I never regretted it. What long, fulfilling relationship doesn’t have a few bumps in the road? It’s the nature of things. No one’s perfect all the time, and I knew that you couldn’t be either.

However, Mr. Irving, I believe our time together must come to an end. I’ll always cherish the time we had. I know, I know, it seems rash, but I’ve thought this through long and hard. It’s better for both of us.

See, while The Fourth Hand was outright bad, Until I Find You is more subtly, deviously so. The Fourth Hand didn’t try to hide its lousiness beneath a lovely facade that, for a while at least, replicates the matter-of-fact but joyful writing that carried me through your earlier books. I knew I didn’t like it from the start, and though I finished it, I never wavered. This new one though deceives in a way I’m just not comfortable with subjecting myself to any further.

At first, it seemed like any of your other, better works. There’s a fatherless boy, Jack Burns, who is led around Europe by Alice, his tattoo-artist mother, as she tails his father, an organist who loved her and left her pregnant and alone. The elements are all there: the prostitutes of Amsterdam; dysfunctional sexual relationships, between Jack and every woman he meets in the book; fixation on times past, as Jack never really moves past the four-year-old he is when we start the book; and clearly autobiographical elements, once Jack becomes a famous actor and, later, a writer. Yes, it fits in your oeuvre all right, but that’s what makes it even worse. With your last book I was let down quickly and easily. This one carried me along for a while, thinking you were back in your element, fooling me into thinking that things were the way they used to be. You’re cruel, Mr. Irving, but that’s fine. You won’t be abusing me anymore.

I found myself talking to your book, as if my words could possibly reach you from where I was sprawled on my couch. I remember shouting, “What the hell?” at least once; the expletives escalated from there. Your books are populated with odd people who don’t work quite like the rest of the world; this book is populated by people who really could not exist, and in equally unlikely and unbelievable circumstances. A child molester who ends up working in a school on the most convenient night of the story? No, no, no.

The book is subtly shaped by Jack’s memories and misperceptions; unfortunately, Jack is not the most engrossing character to follow around. The people around him and ultimately even his therapist tell him he’s not really a person, that he never really gets away from being the actor he becomes. Unfortunately, they’re right. Following the main character is similar to following a nonentity. Instead of feeling like we’re riding along in his head, the narrative just feels warped and illogical, twisted by the character—but his character isn’t strong enough to justify the maze he puts us through.

Instead, it makes the twists and turns of the plot seem incredibly unlikely. For instance, when Jack goes back to Europe as an adult to retrace the earlier trip he took with his mom, every person he encounters acts as though their brief encounter with Jack and Alice (or the stories they’ve heard about it in the ensuing years) was the pinnacle of their existence. Despite being in his 30s, and not having been seen for decades, everyone recognizes Jack—not from his career—but from encountering him as a toddler. People across a continent have evidently been yakking about them since the ‘70s. Whether it’s Jack or the story that is this solipsistic is not clear, but regardless, it’s deeply irritating, and led to further verbal abuse being heaved toward your book.

However, what really convinced me it’s time to move on is the way your recent success has worked its way into this book. It’s a strange thing, and it may be entirely my own preference, but I must tell you something: fake Hollywood stories are boring. Don’t get me wrong: I love celebrity gossip. I’ve devoured many an issue of People, and I’ve been known to read some of my grandmother’s tabloids when I have the opportunity. But when the people in the struggling-actor-becomes-major-star story are not real, it’s just dull. Consequently, I was rolling my eyes through a large part of the book. Don’t worry I’m not ruining anything for other readers. People in your books usually have their paths laid out for them from toddler hood on; this book is no different. It used to be interesting, showing a life of clarity the likes of which most people don’t get to experience. Here, it just means that the characters will never move past the tiresome habits given to them in the first pages of the book.

I did see promise. I mean that. The tattoo culture that Alice inhabits is interesting, and, I suspect, well researched. And I always love the journeys you take us on when going through Europe. I always will. However, what usually enchants me just fell flat in this book. To be honest, it felt like you were going through the motions, that you read some interesting nonfiction books and had some experiences in Hollywood your family was getting tired of hearing about, and you decided to shove them into your next novel. It’s still better than some stuff out there, but it’s far below the works I remember most fondly. You’re not who you used to be. That’s fine. In real life, people do change. I have too.

I think it’s best that we keep our distance from each other for a while and let the air clear. I wish you only the best. We’ve had some great times together, but it’s time to move on.

Until I Find You, 848 pages, published by Random House and available at book retailers and public libraries.

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