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Until I find you" is John Irving's 11th and most personal novel. Its protagonist, Jack Burns, believes he was abandoned by his father and was sexually abused as a child, both details straight from Irving's life. Jack's mother is a tattoo artist, his absent father an itinerant church organist with music tattooed all over him. Jack grows up to be a cross-dressing actor and an Oscar-winning screenwriter. Then his life gets upended when everything he thinks he knows about his past is proved wrong. Malcolm Jones and the novelist wrestled over the merits of the book at Irving's family vacation spot in Canada on an island--this is a pure Irving touch--that his wife's grandfather won in a poker game.
JONES: The first thing we have to do is agree on how much of this plot we're both willing to give away.
IRVING: I'm not terribly sensitive about that. I write mostly long and always plotted novels. I trust that my readers will know that I'm not going to put them through this long journey without Jack Burns finding his father.
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I was thinking more about the revelation halfway through that what Jack's mother has told him about his father is a lie.
Oh, but that flip-flop of Jack's memories--readers are going to hear about that from reviews before they read the book. That said, I have to point out that I rewrote the book in the third person--it was originally in the first person, from Jack's point of view--because I wanted the reader to love Alice, the mother, as much as the little boy who wanted to hold her hand. And I wanted the reader to be as surprised by the reversal in the middle of the novel as Jack is, when he finds out she's lied to him. I couldn't do that in the first person. The first person was more germane to my existence. I was abused as a child, I had a mysteriously absent father. I felt so identified with Jack. But I had to tell myself, don't be Jack. Let the reader see Jack. Anyway, the plot is so complex, we can't possibly give it all away.
I had a problem with the omniscient narration. I could never figure out who was telling the story. It seems as if someone has heard the story from Jack and is now telling it to us. But then there are moments when Jack is like a stranger to the narrator.
I'll tell you why that happens. Everything in the book is explicitly described, not just the sexual material but the subcultures of tattoo artists and church organists and so forth. Even so, the very essence of Jack's character--I hope--eluded you for much of the story. His strangeness is obdurate. I wanted that. His psychiatrist tells him that he's told her everything about his life, ad nauseam, but she doesn't know who he is.
One of the great pleasures of this book was seeing worlds I didn't know about--like tattoo artists and church organists.
My writer friends are sometimes dismayed that I can't just let a book happen, but I don't know how. Research is a big thing. How can I write a novel about tattooing until I've made a study of maritime tattoos--until I've met all the people in the North Sea who are doing these old-fashioned tattoos? How can I write about William Burns as an organist until I've heard every goddam piece of Northern European church-organ repertoire? At least a third of those tattoo artists in the book are real. A third of the Hollywood people are real.
But there's another problem: when real people and fictional people collide in a novel, it reminds me in a way that I don't want to be reminded that I'm reading fiction.
I won't argue that readers may be taken out of the novel by their familiarity with real people. The old willing suspension of disbelief is probably put to the test more in the Hollywood chapters of this novel simply because readers are aware of who is fictional and who is real. What I can tell you is, the Hollywood readers who read this manuscript loved that stuff. Maybe because it's their world. And in the case of Jack's Oscar, I figured, if you're going to give a fictional character an Oscar, you better be careful about whose real Oscar you take away, so that in my case I thought, OK, I'll take mine [for "The Cider House Rules"] away. If anyone's going to have his nose out of joint, it's going to be me. That seemed the least I could do.
For a novel that features child abuse, several tragic deaths and a genuine madman, this is--weird as it sounds--a very funny book.
We've talked about some serious and disturbing personal themes underlying this novel, but let's not forget, in every novel I write, I am a comic novelist.
I enjoyed this novel, page for page. It was a pleasure to read every time I picked it up. But when I put it down, I wasn't compelled to pick it back up. I realize that Jack is supposed to be this cipher, that there's no one home in his head. But the problem with that is that the book is only interesting for what happens toJack. Once he realizes what his problem is, everything begins to cohere. But that's two thirds of the way through the book. Until then, there are many incidents and subplots, but there's no driving force.
I can't refute or disagree with that one. That's so much what the book is about that you just have to let the language and the characters keep you interested. So I wouldn't argue except to say that it's my job as a storyteller to entertain you sufficiently that you want to keep reading. I don't think I'm going to lose anybody in the first part of this novel, when Jack Burns is a little boy. But in the middle, we don't like Jack as much as a cross-dressing young actor in Hollywood. I felt as if I weren't doing my job unless I made him the kind of character who makes people uncomfortable. But if you get through that middle section, you will not stop.
"Until I Find You" has one of the most satisfying endings I've read in ages. When Jack meets his father, William--when we meet William--everything that's come before seems worth it. It's a great payoff.
Thanks, but there'd better be. I don't say that just for the personal difficulties I had with the novel's subject matter. I say it more for the reader. I knew all along that Jack's father, William, had to deliver the charm. You can't make a reader take a journey this long and not reward him.
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