A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

The opening words to the book say the main character, John Weelwright, is 'doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice' and now, thanks to this heartbreakingly funny book, so am I. I first picked up this book whilst searching my library for something new to read, having read what seemed like most of the titles already, and had my interst piqued by the word 'prayer' in the title (I have often been intrigued by tales of religion and such - I don't beleive in any God but I find the topic interesting). On opening the book and reading the first paragraph I was hooked. Even though it is about religious beliefs and set in a very religious community ...

A Prayer for Owen Meany. **************************** A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of those books that I had been told was a 'must read' by countless friends, and so it was with great pleasure that I finally got my hands on a copy just before Christmas. The main character is little Owen Meany himself, although the book is told from the perspective of Owen's best friend Johnny Wheelwright. Johnny tells Owen's story from 1987, when he is a grown man, a teacher now living in Canada. He details their childhood and adolescence in America together throughout the 1950s and 1960s up until Owen's early and tragic death.... Owen is not ...

I became a fan of John Irving after reading "Hotel New Hampshire" and have read everything he has written since. And while they are all enjoyable - to differing extents - none of his novels have touched me as much as "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Perhaps I felt a special closeness to the book since the two main characters are both flawed - both physically and emotionally. Owen is a dwarf and has having a feeling he is on a mission from God. Johnny Wheelwright is dyslexic (like myself) and is in a life-long search for his father. The relationship between these two boys as they become entwined and grow, is as growing and entwining as Irving's ...