The Fourth Hand - John Irving

I'm just going to come right out and say it - not my favourite Irving book ever. I won't say it's not good, because I think that to the right person at the right time, this could be a very enjoyable story. At school, we often talk about "boy's books" and "girl's books." I think maybe a man might enjoy this one more than I did. Basically, a sweet good-looking womanizing reporter gets his hand bitten off by a lion on live tv. His extreme fame allows his womanizing to blossom, but leaves his career somewhat limited. He soon falls for the wife of his hand transplant donor, and tries to change his somewhat empty life. One thing that Irving can always do is make the extraordinary seem ordinary, and he does that here wonderfully. I just don't like reading graphic tales about womanizing old men having sex with much younger women despite supposedly being in love with another woman...here's where men might sympathize with the main character in a way that I couldn't. I know that men can have sex with people and still love someone else, I just choose to live in ignorance of this fact as much as possible! For this reason, I do not fully recommend this novel to everyone, but I would be interested to know what others think of it, so another Irving fan has gotta read it and let me know!