A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving, 1989
Historical fiction Literary fictionContemporary fiction
A boy who believes God has a plan for him, and a friend who spends his life deciding whether to believe it too.
Feels like melancholy, awe and tenderness. About faith, friendship and freedom.
A page from the book
Nobody tells you that losing someone is a series of small, ordinary disappearances.
When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part. John Irving.Owen's dialogue is printed in capitals throughout the novel: a wrecked voice made typographic rather than described.
Books that feel like this
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer, 2008
Also tenderness and friendship.
More by John Irving
The Hotel New Hampshire
John Irving, 1981
A family turns its parents' romance into a legend, then has to live with the bear, the hotel, and the jokes.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- What is A Prayer for Owen Meany like?
- Feels like melancholy, awe and tenderness. About faith, friendship and freedom.
- What should I read after A Prayer for Owen Meany?
- If you liked A Prayer for Owen Meany, try A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles), Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer).
A taste of the feed
The panic that arrives just after the point of no return.
It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to.
Never Let Me Go · Kazuo Ishiguro
The routine question that catches a man out, long after he thought he was safe.
After nearly four years of retirement, why hadn’t he been able to formulate a pat answer? He usually reported that he supplied various churches here and there, which was true, of course, but it sounded lame. Indeed, he once said, without thinking, “Oh, nothing much.” Upon hearing such foolishness out of his mouth, he felt covered with shame.
In This Mountain · Jan Karon
The friend everyone counts on, and what it costs to share him.
That’s Douglas. I count on him for everything. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing, it’d be Douglas. We can share him if you want.
Where the Wild Things Are · Maurice Sendak
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