{"product_id":"water-method-man-book-john-irving-9780345418005","title":"The Water-Method Man","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"John Irving, it is abundantly clear, is a true artist.\"--\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Fred \"Bogus\" Trumper has troubles. A divorced, broke graduate student of Old Norse in 1970s New York, Trumper is a wayward knight-errant in the battle of the sexes and the pursuit of happiness: His ex-wife has moved in with his childhood best friend, his life is the subject of a tell-all movie, and his chronic urinary tract infection requires surgery. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Trumper is determined to change. There's only one problem: it seems the harder he tries to alter his adolescent ways, the more he is drawn to repeating the mistakes of the past. . . .\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Written when Irving was twenty-nine, Trumper's tale of woe is told with all the wit and humor that would become Irving's trademark.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\"Three or four times as funny as most novels.\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e--\u003cb\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Water-Method Man\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Friendship, marriage, and family are his primary themes, but at that blundering level of life where mishap and folly--something close to joyful malice--perpetually intrude and distrupt, often fatally. Life, in [John] Irving's fiction, is always under siege. Harm and disarray are daily fare, as if the course of love could not run true. . . . Irving's multiple manner . . . his will to come at the world from different directions, is one of the outstandint traits of \u003ci\u003eThe World According to Garp,\u003c\/i\u003e but this remarkable flair for . . . stories inside stories . . . isalready handled with mastery . . . and with a freedom almost wanton in \u003ci\u003eThe Water-Method Man\u003c\/i\u003e [which is Garp's predecessor by six years].\"\u003cb\u003e--Terrence Des Pres\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Brutal reality and hallucination, comedy and pathos. A rich, unified tapestry.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eTime\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49911674863889,"sku":"CIN034541800XG","price":4.28,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50338152349969,"sku":"CIN034541800XVG","price":4.28,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51001226526993,"sku":"NIN9780345418005","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52652181258513,"sku":"GOR003001214","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52763288404241,"sku":"CIN034541800XA","price":4.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/034541800X.jpg?v=1787222010","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/water-method-man-book-john-irving-9780345418005","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}