To imagine the American Literary landscape without author John Irving would be akin to imagining our own UK landsape without Dickens, such is the scope of Irvings level of celebrity and the level of his achievement.
Books like The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules, The World According To Garp and of course, A Prayer For Owen Meeny helped sculpt many a young literary mind including my own. You did not have to love these works but you could not help but appreciate their narrative power.
The Last Chairlift has arrived on my counter top - weighty in size, I would expect nothing less and whilst the current cover, this is a limited edition proof, is simple in its deign and appearance a quick flick through and a read of the blurb and I am already in Irvings thrall.
This book is a ghost story and a love story spanning eight decades of sexual politics. In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts; in The Last Chairlift, they aren't the first or the last ghosts he sees.
Pre-order The Last Chairlift by phone 01993 822539 or email
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