Anita Shreve’s novel The Weight of Water, published in 1998, is a dual-narrative that intricately links a contemporary marriage in crisis with a notorious historical double murder. In the present day, magazine photographer Jean Janes travels to the desolate Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine to shoot a photo essay […]
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Narrated by expatriate librarian John Wheelwright, John Irving’s poignant 1989 novel follows his lifelong bond with Owen Meany, a fiercely intelligent, mysteriously tiny boy with a permanent all-caps, high-pitched voice. Convinced he is an instrument of God, Owen foresees the exact date and heroic nature of his own death. The narrative elegantly alternates between 1987
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John Irving’s 16th novel, Queen Esther (2025), is a multi-generational, historical saga that marks a triumphant return to the orphanage setting of The Cider House Rules. The narrative follows Esther Nacht, a Viennese-born Jewish orphan whose life is profoundly shaped by antisemitism and a fierce commitment to her namesake—the biblical Queen Esther—who protected her people.
John Irving’s The Hotel New Hampshire, published in 1981, is a sprawling, darkly comedic, and eccentric family saga that explores the resilience of love, the necessity of illusions, and the chaotic nature of fate. Narrated by John Berry, the novel follows the unorthodox lives of the Berry family, led by their optimistic yet delusional father,
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A Separate Peace by John Knowles is a great example of a New England prep school story. It’s a coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of the early 1940s at the Devon School, an all-boys boarding school in New England, while World War II rages abroad. The story is narrated by Gene Forrester, who returns
