![]() ![]() I was in elementary school when Ryan White was kicked out of school for being HIV positive and in college when the first anti-retrovirals were approved, but while AIDS was present and in the news for much of my youth, I had little to no experience with people living with the disease until I was an adult and public sentiment-and available treatments-had changed dramatically. And I really appreciate the look at what the AIDS epidemic was like in the 1980's. In addition, Irving tackles without flinching issues of sexuality and gender fluidity that have seemingly got our whole country shifting in their seats a little (or a lot) right now. I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany and A Widow for One Year, and I enjoyed, to one degree or another, everything else of his I read (with the possible exception of The Water-Method Man, but we're all entitled to some misses).Overall, In One Person does just what my favorite Irving novels do with the reshuffled elements and the new meaning. I loved the way he took similar elements (wrestling, squash, New England, boarding schools, abortion, sexual diversity, shrill and prudish women) and reshuffled them into something full of new meaning. ![]() Throughout college and for about a half-decade after, John Irving was my favorite author. ![]()
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