Book Review: In One Person by John Irving (48 in 2012? #40)

          A friend of a friend says that you shouldn’t read more then one book by a given author in a calendar year.  I’ve read five John Irving books over the last two and I’m beginning to see his point.  I don’t want to take anything away from Irving’s work, but I’m starting to get burned out on all his themes.  I may have only read five of his novels but they span the length of his career and all contain wrestling, private schools, professional authors, sexual perversion, the German language, and New England.  I’m probably even missing a few things.  Bears seem to be prevalent as well, but I missed any mention of them in In One Person.
            I’m trying to see the forest through the trees and that being the case I don’t want to knock this novel.  If you enjoy Irving, this is a very solid story and if you haven’t ever read his work you obviously won’t have the problems I mentioned in the first paragraph.  Again, I’ve only read five of his 14 novels, but In One Person is easily the most perverse of his work that I have read and that is saying a lot.  One of the things I enjoy most about Irving, though, is how he tackles perversion without making the reader uncomfortable.  He writes with such ease about taboo subjects without sensationalizing them.  I’m sure there are many people who wouldn’t enjoy reading about transvestites, gay sex or incest but Irving presents them all in such a way that you are excepting when you should be excepting, uncomfortable when you should be uncomfortable and appalled when you should be appalled.  He has found a way to write truthfully about sex without being salacious.
            One of Irving’s other strengths is his ability to write deeply human characters and In One Person is no exception.  Irving isn’t scared of flawed characters, especially his protagonists, and it is a trait that gives his works such amazing depth.  Although they usually find themselves in absurd predicaments, the characters themselves never feel absurd.  Even ones that could easily turn into caricatures find a way to keep the humanity that keeps the stories grounded.  Grandpa Harry is obviously a source of comic relief, but at the same time serves a deep emotional significance to the narrator, Billy.  It would have been easy for Irving to leave him as a one dimensional character, but making him more human brought the stories themes to life.
            In One Person was at its best as a novel when it talked about AIDS.  Once the epidemic became a plot point, the novel reached an emotional high and brought home many of the themes that had been building for pages.  Irving wrote about the almost forgotten time when HIV was a death sentence with such poignancy, one can’t help but feel not only for the people who died but those that were left behind as well.
            Recurring themes aside, In One Person is a good read, but not a great one.  If you enjoy Irving’s work, you will most likely enjoy this one.  If you have never picked up one of his books, this isn’t where I would suggest you start, but there is still much to get out of it.