About this title: Patrick Wallingford, a TV reporter, is good looking, successful, and a hit with women. On an assignment, his hand is bitten off by a lion, making him into an instant media celebrity. He meets a childless woman who offers him the hand of her dead husband if he will impregnate her. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 07/2001
ISBN-13:9780375506277ISBN:0375506276
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 07/2001
ISBN-13:9780375506277ISBN:0375506276
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2002
ISBN-13:9780345449344ISBN:0345449347
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 352 p. Audience: General/trade. Has light flairing on front right side of cover, has used store name stamped on top side of book and a small mark on inside on book, otherwise in good condition. read more
Washington Post Book World, 07/01/2001 "Any plot summary of Irving's new novel, THE FOURTH HAND, is likely to reassure his detractors that he has revisited his previous themes and they should steer clear. That would be a shame, since for all its mutilation and moral ranting, it is first and foremost a very sweet love story....Certainly some readers will find Irving's rants about television and television news needlessly long (and long-winded), and there is little in them that hasn't been said before, (in some cases, by Irving himself)....Nevertheless, THE FOURTH HAND is a rich and deeply moving tale, and (in the best sense) vintage John Irving: a story of two very disparate people, and the strange and unexpected ways we may grow." -- Chris Bohjalian
New York Times, 07/03/2001 "Mr. Irving has always had a taste for sprawling, improbable plots, but in his most successful works...he has used his instinctive storytelling gifts to weld all the gimmickry...into resonant moral fables. THE FOURTH HAND, however, never becomes anything more than a collection of farcical episodes strung haphazardly together, an unfortunate throwback to his antic and ham-handed 1981 novel, THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE....Patrick is a cardboard figure who seems to have stepped out of a romance novel or self-help book." -- Michiko Kakutani
Salon, 07/13/2001 "Patrick's studliness and essential shallowness differentiate THE FOURTH HAND from Irving's recent books--and frankly, they make it worse....I tend to love Irving--for his dedication to complex, old-fashioned plotting; for his unironic, urgent characters; and for his passion for peculiar, telling details and rhythms of prose. So although there's not much plot in THE FOURTH HAND, and characters tend to appear briefly and then never return...I found kernels of familiar delight here, anyhow....Perhaps THE FOURTH HAND is just a quick shot at another bestseller before the glow of the Oscar wears off....But perhaps THE FOURTH HAND is best seen as a transitional novel, moving Irving away from the Dickensian storytelling he's been entrenched in....Could be he's heading toward a looser, more modern form. I truly hope he is. Because when Irving is good, he is very, very good, and when he is bad, he gives me glimpses of something better." -- Emily Jenkins
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