The Hotel New Hampshire

Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, the Berry family "dreams on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Prayer for Owen Meany and A Son of the Circus.

"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 lived 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 of A Widow for One Year and The Cider House Rules.

The New York Times - James Atlas

. . .Irving has decided to charm and entertain his readers -- with a vengeance. The Hotel New Hampshire, the story of an eccentric family that sets up house in various unlikely hotels here and abroad, is a hectic gaudy saga with the verve of a Marx Brothers movie. . . .Irving has always been inventive, and [the novel] is crammed with the exotic characters and fantastic events that spill from the pages of his other novels.

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.