![]() ![]() We watch the story unfold at two distinct periods in John's life: the first period covers his boyhood and adolescence, starting in 1948 when he is six years old and ending in July of 1968. ![]() The novel follows the story of two boys: our narrator, John Wheelwright, and his best friend, Owen Meany, an unusual-looking boy with a voice that could give you goose bumps (and not in a good way). Owen Meany is set in the fictional town of Gravesend, New Hampshire, which is based on the real town of Exeter where Irving himself grew up. Like most of the novels that Irving has penned throughout his career, A Prayer for Owen Meany takes place in New England – the setting he creates makes you want to run out, put on a flannel shirt, and start drinking some apple cider. A huge number of cultural and literary references run throughout the text, but the novel was most clearly influenced by The Tin Drum by Günter Grass and the works of Charles Dickens. It was even adapted (very loosely, however) for the 1998 film Simon Birch starring Ashley Judd and Jim Carrey. It is now not only a staple on high school reading lists, but it is also a novel that people love to read for the mere fact that it is so engaging and entertaining. After its publication, it quickly became Irving's best-selling novel since his immensely popular work The World According to Garp came out in 1978. ![]() Published in 1989, A Prayer for Owen Meany is John Irving's seventh novel it is also one of his most popular works. ![]()
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