Description: While reporting a story from India, a new York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation's first hand transplant; meanwhile, in the distracting aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, the surgeon is seduced by his housekeeper. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband's left hand -- that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy.

This is how The Fourth Hand begins; it seems, at first, to be a comedy, perhaps a satire, almost certainly a sexual farce. Yet, in the end, The Fourth Hand is as realistic and emotionally moving as any of Mr. Irving's previous novels -- including The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A Widow for One Year -- or his Oscar-winning screenplay of The Cider House Rules. And while The Fourth Hand is characteristic of John Irving's seamless storytelling, and it further explores some of the author's recurring themes -- loss, grief, love as redemption -- this novel also asks an interesting question: "How can anyone identify a dream of the future?" The answer: "Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love".

Please Wait