This novel has many of Irving's trademarks, including ingenious long-term plotting and a quirky characters. The book is ostensibly about Ruth Cole, a young woman whose mother leaves her and her father when Ruth is 4-years-old, and who grows up to be a writer. However, it's really a book about grief and how one terrible incident affects several lives for 4 decades. Ruth's mother leaves because she can't get over the death of Ruth's two older brothers. Ruth's father is a misogynistic skirt-chaser. And Eddie, a 16-year-old writer's assistant to Ruth's father (a famous writer of children's books), falls in love with Ruth's mother and never gets over it for decades. This wasn't my favorite Irving of all time, but even a second-rate Irving is bound to be an fun read. I enjoyed it.