Often long and heavily plotted, John Irving's fiction regularly features troubled childhoods, violent maiming, sexual promiscuity, circuses, sports, religion, writers and writing, domesticated animals, travel and memory. Avenue of Mysteries sits right in the sweet spot of Irving's obsessions--and as with his past books, its imaginative storytelling overcomes its plot complexity and characters' often over-the-top behavior.
Irving tells a rambling story that moves in and out of chronological time. At 14 years old, Juan Diego lives in a shack with his younger sister, Lupe, and their suspected father, Rivera, outside Oaxaca, Mexico. They are the "dump kids," and Rivera the "dump jefe." Along the journey of Juan Diego's life, he and Lupe join a traveling Oaxacan circus, and Rivera accidently runs over Juan Diego's foot, giving him a permanent limp. By the time he is 54, the novelist-protagonist Juan Diego is visiting Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Manila, Philippines, ruminating on the many ghosts and memories from his past.
Juan Diego is an inspired character who provides Irving with a platform from which to explore the mysteries of growing old, of religious fanaticism and fantasy, of language, of companionship and love, and especially of writing. Regarding his maimed foot, Juan Diego thinks: "A cripple's life is one of watching others do what he can't do, not the worst option for a future novelist." From wherever it came, Irving's knack for telling a good story is as strong as ever. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.