In One Person (Paperback) by John Irving

About the Book

A "New York Times"-bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity. Billy, the bisexual narrator, tells the tragicomic story of his life as a "sexual suspectO amid a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention.

Book Synopsis

From the author of A Prayer for Owen Meany and The World According to Garp comes his most daringly political, sexually transgressive, and moving novel in well over a decade (Vanity Fair).

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love--tormented, funny, and affecting--and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a sexual suspect, a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of terminal cases, The World According to Garp.

In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy's friends and lovers--a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself worthwhile.

Review Quotes

"In One Person gives a lot. It's funny, as you would expect. It's risky in what it exposes....Tolerance, in a John Irving novel, is not about anything goes. It's what happens when we face our own desires honestly, whether we act on them or not."--Jeanette Winterson "The New York Times Book Review"

"It is impossible to imagine the American - or international - literary landscape without John Irving....He has sold tens of millions of copies of his books, books that have earned descriptions like epic and extraordinary and controversial and sexually brave. And yet, unlike so many writers in the contemporary canon, he manages to write books that are both critically acclaimed and beloved for their sheer readability. He is as close as one gets to a contemporary Dickens in the scope of his celebrity and the level of his achievement." --Time

"There's a talent at work in this brave new novel that -- as Prospero said -- 'frees all faults.' "--The Washington Post