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The Fourth Hand
  • Published: 7 June 2002
  • ISBN: 9780552771092
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $29.99

The Fourth Hand

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A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.

'Imagine a young man on his way to a less-than-thirty-second event - the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age.'

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. 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...
  • Published: 7 June 2002
  • ISBN: 9780552771092
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $29.99
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About the author

John Irving

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times – winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award, in 1981, for the short story ‘Interior Space’. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules – a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. For more information about the author, please visit www.john-irving.com
portrait photo of John Irving

Also by John Irving

Avenue of Mysteries
In One Person
Last Night in Twisted River
Until I Find You
A Widow For One Year
Setting Free The Bears
The Water-Method Man
See all

Praise for The Fourth Hand

Sharp and very, very funny, this is another of Irving's fiercely original meditations of life's inherent strangeness

Uncut

Irving has a literary style similar to a snowball effect: with each novel he creates symbols and develops themes to accompany those he has already accumulated. Grief, loss, abortion, amputation, sex, children, America's political history and the power of foresight are all explored here

Observer

A coruscating comedy of sexual manners. In the margins of a hard-hitting satire on the modern media, Irving has produced some of the funniest bedroom scenes of recent years

Sunday Telegraph

Richly entertaining reading: part satire, part farce... there's no better - or funnier - reintroduction to the least known truly great American author

FHM

A rich and deeply moving tale... Vintage Irving

Washington Post

A beguiling tale of love and redemption

Time Out

Peerless... Writing without a wasted second

Guardian

Articulate, clever, quirky, more than a touch profound and very funny

Mirror

If you are looking for something light and provocative for the beach this is a great little number

Irish Independent

an engaging, warm-hearted novel'

Scotland on Sunday