The Hotel New Hampshire [Paperback]

TheNew York Timesbestselling saga of a most unusual family from the award-winning author ofThe World According to Garp.

“The first of my father’s illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels.” So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they “dream on” in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author ofA Prayer for Owen MeanyandLast Night in Twisted River.

“A hectic, gaudy saga with the verve of a Marx Brothers movie.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A startlingly original family saga that combines macabre humor with Dickensian sentiment.”—Time

“Rejoice! John Irving has written another book according to your world. . . . You must read this book.”—Los Angeles Times

“Spellbinding . . . intensely human . . . a high-wire act of dazzling virtuosity.”—Cosmopolitan

John Irvinghas been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for the novelThe World According to Garp. In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay forThe Cider House Rules—a film with seven Academy Award nominations.

1. When Freud gives his blessing to John's mother and father in 1939 at Arbuthnot-by-the-Sea, he tells Mother, "Forgive him, even though it will cost you." What do you think Freud was referrlc"