Irving, John

The Fourth Hand

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 "From the Hardcover edition.""