**#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
**
While reporting a story from India, New York journalist Patrick
Wallingford inadvertently becomes his own headline when his left hand is
eaten by a lion. In Boston, a renowned surgeon eagerly awaits the
opportunity to perform the nation's first hand transplant. But what if
the donor's widow demands visitation rights with the hand? In answering
this unexpected question, John Irving has written a novel that is by
turns brilliantly comic and emotionally moving, offering a penetrating
look at the power of second chances and the will to change.
**Praise for *The Fourth Hand
"A rich and deeply moving tale . . . Vintage Irving: a story of two very
disparate people, and the strange and unexpected ways we grow . . .
Irving's novels are perceptive and precise reflections of the world
around us."--The Washington Post Book World
"A blend of sexual farce, journalistic satire, and tender love story . .
. From what at first seems bizarre, Irving builds the best kind of love
story: an improbable one. Wallingford gets more than a transplanted
hand; he begins to find his soul."--USA Today
"A riveting entertainment and certainly one of the funniest novels of
the year. The authoritative control of Irving's storytelling has never
been more impressive. . . . The delighted reader is powerless to look
away."--Chicago Sun-Times
"[A] thoroughly satisfying literary experience . . . Irving's most
compassionate and redemptive [novel] to date . . . [His] mastery of
characterization is unequaled in American novelists of the day."--St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
"A beautiful story about the redemptive power of love."**--***The
Denver Post
*
