Book Rec: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

February 25, 2022

Book Recs, part 2. There are a small hand-full of books that have stuck with me ever since I read them several years ago. They're not new, not terribly popular, not anything you'll see on BookTok or Bookstagram. But they made an impression on me and have become some of my all-time feelgood favorites.

You can find Pt 1 here.

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For this second installment, I’m going with a book that felt equal parts profoundly beautiful and profoundly weird. I read this for the first time more than 20 years ago, but I remember the impact it had on me when I'd finished. It's a little Forrest Gump-like in its believability and tone which I actually really enjoyed. It's an extraordinary story, unlike anything I'd read before or since, about an extraordinary person. I highly recommend giving it a look.

A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving (john-irving.com)

“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death."

[From Wikipedia:] A Prayer for Owen Meany is the seventh novel by American writer John Irving. Published in 1989, it tells the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany growing up together in a small New Hampshire town during the 1950s and 1960s. According to John's narration, Owen is a remarkable boy in many ways; he believes himself to be God's instrument and sets out to fulfill the fate he has prophesied for himself.

The novel deals with serious spiritual issues, such as the importance of faith, matters of social justice, and the concept of fate, in the context of an outlandish narrative. Throughout the novel, John and Owen both offer criticisms of organized religion and religious hypocrisy. However, the spiritual dimension is repeatedly emphasized by Owen's foretelling of his own impending death. (Read more here.)