John Irving - In One Person

Marty Schwartz

Nick Spengler

Helga Stephenson

Abraham Verghese

Edmund White

The World According to Garp , which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving’s fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving’s novels are now translated into thirty-five languages, and he has had nine international bestsellers. Worldwide, the Irving novel most often called “an American classic” is A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), the portrayal of an enduring friendship at that time when the Vietnam War had its most divisive effect on the United States.

In 1992, John Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, until he was thirty-four, and coached the sport until he was forty-seven.) In 2000, Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules , a Lasse Hallström film that earned seven Academy Award nominations. Tod Williams wrote and directed The Door in the Floor , the 2004 film adapted from Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year .

In One Person is John Irving’s thirteenth novel.

Setting Free the Bears

The Water-Method Man

The 158-Pound Marriage

The World According to Garp

The Hotel New Hampshire

The Cider House Rules

A Prayer for Owen Meany

A Son of the Circus

The Imaginary Girlfriend

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

A Widow for One Year

My Movie Business

The Cider House Rules: A Screenplay

The Fourth Hand

A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound

Until I Find You

Last Night in Twisted River

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Garp Enterprises, Ltd.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition May 2012

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Designed by Nancy Singer

Jacket design by Jackie Seow

Jacket photograph by Mark Dye for Simon & Schuster

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Irving, John.

In one person : a novel / John Irving.

p. cm.

1. Domestic fiction. 2. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

PS3559.R8I5 2012

813’.54—dc23 2011039707

ISBN 978-1-4516-6412-6 (print)

ISBN 978-1-4516-6415-7 (eBook)