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TO THE TEACHER
“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person
I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God;
I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.” So begins A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s unforgettable, gorgeously
written coming-of-age saga of two American boys—one from a world of privilege and family connections, the other from
a working-class family; one wrestling with doubt, the other brimming with faith; one initially indifferent to the life of
the mind, the other almost supernaturally brilliant.
It is the summer of 1953, and early in the novel these two boys—best friends by now, aged eleven—are playing in a
Little League game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball (a freak line-drive shot) that kills the
other boy’s mother. The boy who hit that ball doesn’t believe in accidents; for him, all things have a purpose or reason
behind them. As for his own purpose, his own reason for existing, Owen Meany believes that he is God’s instrument.
And John Wheelwright, the boy whose glamorous-yet-earthy, beloved-yet-mysterious mother died on that fateful day, is
finally revealing—with the extraordinary tale (or “prayer”) that is this novel—the full story of the boy he’s “doomed to
remember.”
“The only thing wrong with me is what’s missing,” claims our narrator on page 540. “Owen Meany is missing.”
Haunted yet invigorated by the strange but true martyrdom of his best friend, equally given to sorrowful musings and
rueful rants, John is now a man without a country, a Nick without a Gatsby, and maybe even a middle-aged English
teacher without a clue—but he’s also, as we discover, a devout and devoted convert. (He’s a believer, and he’s nothing if
not reflective . . . and verbose.) It’s an amazing and quite moving journey, the trek that John and Owen share—and it’s
one that, somehow, goes on for decades after Owen Meany’s death.
Sweeping effortlessly and engagingly from the innocence of the early 1950s to the bizarre nightmare of the late 1960s—
from the pranks and jokes of Sunday school to the protests and regrets of an entire generation—A Prayer for Owen
Meany remains a masterpiece of contemporary American fiction. It is a meditation on faith, fate, and friendship that
students are certain to remember long after the last page is read.
PRAISE FOR JOHN IRVING’S A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY
“The magic of A Prayer for Owen Meany is that it forces us into a confrontation with our own carapaces of skepticism. .
. . It is a brave and subtly disturbing affirmation of faith, and it is all the more remarkable for its engagement with the
deepest questions, the most painful mysteries of our lives.”—Los Angeles Times
“John Irving, who writes novels in the unglamorous but effective way Babe Ruth used to hit home runs, deserves a
medal not only for writing this book but for the way he has written it. . . . A Prayer for Owen Meany is a rare creation
[and] an amazingly brave piece of work. . . . So extraordinary, so original, and so enriching. . . . Readers will come to
the end feeling sorry to leave [this] richly textured and carefully wrought world.”—Stephen King, Washington Post Book
World
“Irving delivers a boisterous cast, a spirited storyline, and a quality of prose that is frequently underestimated.”—Time
Magazine
A Prayer for Owen Meany:
Teacher’s Guide
“Among the very best American novels of our time.”
—CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
