Hardcover, 543 pages
English language
Published Jan. 5, 1989 by Lester & Orpen Dennys.
"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany." So begins John Irving's new novel.
Living in Toronto, an American exile recalls a childhood friendship that changed his life. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys - best friends - are playing in a Little League game in Gravesend, New Hampshire; one of the boys hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother. The boy who hit the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen - after that 1953 foul ball - is extraordinary and terrifying.
(front flap)
Best first sentence of all time. A good chunk of the story takes place during the Vietnam era and it was spooky how much of the politics foreshadowed the problems of today. Wonderful story-Irving's best.
