A Hindi film star, an American missionary, a pair of twins separated at birth, a diminutive chauffeur, and a serial killer collide in a riotous novel by the author of
The World According to Garp
“His most entertaining novel since
Garp.
”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“
A Son of the Circus
is comic genius . . . get ready for [John] Irving's most raucous novel to date.”
The Boston Globe
“Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla, reared in Bombay by maverick foes of tradition, educated in Vienna, married to an Austrian and long a resident of Toronto, is a 59-year-old without a country, culture, or religion to call his own. . . . The novel may not be 'about' India, but Irving's imagined India, which Daruwalla visits periodically, is a remarkable achievement—a pandemonium of servants and clubmen, dwarf clowns and transvestite whores, missionaries and movie stars. This is a land of energetic colliding egos, of modern media clashing with ancient cultures, of broken sexual boundaries.”
New York Newsday
“His most daring and most vibrant novel . . . The story of circus-as-India is told with gusto and delightful irreverence.”
—Bharati Mukherjee,
The Washington Post Book World
“Ringmaster Irving introduces act after act, until three (or more) rings are awhirl at a lunatic pace. . . . [He] spills characters from his imagination as agilely as improbable numbers of clowns pile out of a tiny car. . . . His Bombay and his Indian characters are vibrant and convincing.”
The Wall Street Journal
“Irresistible . . . powerful . . . Irving's gift for dialogue shines.”
Chicago Tribune