Setting Free the Bears

From the Paperback edition.

Siggy and Hannes were disenchanted students and fellow conspirators. Astride a 700cc Royal Enfield motorcycle, they roamed the Austrian countryside. When Gallen, a lovely hitchhiker, joined them, they zeroed in on the Vienna Zoo--and Siggy's dream: setting free the bears!

It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences, in this first novel written by a twenty-five year old John Irving, already a master storyteller.

John Irving's novels can sneak up on a reader -- you might begin by laughing at his eccentric characters but be in tears by the end of the book. With titles such as The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules, he has achieved a singular popularity for a person who is also one of America's most unique contemporary authors.