There were parts of this novel I really liked and parts I struggled to read and it is too long. The reader meets Jack Burns as a four year old and we follow him, sometimes second by second to his early middle age. The story is mostly told chronologically but does look back in later chapters. As a four year old, Jack travels between tattoo parlours, through various Northern European countries. His mother tells him they are following his father. Back in Canada and the USA, there is so much abuse I almost gave up reading. It is only John Irving's brillian writing and his humour that kept me going as I shut my eyes to the worst parts to avoid nightmares. This is when he meets Emma, five years older than Jack who becomes his best friend. Together they live in LA among the stars.and Jack gets a therapist. There are slightly expected twists before the end, lots of detail about films and Hollywood parties and then the big turn around. I kept going to the end, as I say because the writing is so good but I would have loved this to have been shorter.. ( )

Family Drama

From the Dust Jacket"
"'According to his mother, Jack Burns was an actor before he was an actor, but Jack's most vivid memories of childhood were those moments when he felt compelled to hold his mother's hand. He wasn't acting then.'

"So begins John Irving's eleventh novel, 'Until I Find You', the story of the actor Jack Burns. His mother, Alice, is a Toronto tattoo artist. When Jack is four, he travels with Alice to several North Sea ports; they are trying to find Jack's missing father, William, a church organist who is addicted to being tattooed. But Alice is a mystery, and William can't be found. Even Jack's memories are subject to doubt.

"Jack Burns is educated at schools in Canada and New England, but he is shaped by his relationships with older women. John Irving renders Jack's life as an actor in Hollywood with the same richness of detail and range of emotions he uses to describe the tattoo parlours in those North Sea ports and the reverberating music Jacck heard as a child in European churches.

"The author's tone -- indeed, the narrative voice of this novel -- is melancholic. 'Until I Find You' is suffused with overwhelming sadness and deception; it is also a robust and comic novel, certain to be compared to John Irving's most ambitious and moving work." ( )

Not my favorite of JI but it's still a good story. I found the book lagging in the beginning and then the late introduction of many folks in the end left me, aggrivated? Not sure. I was so used to the current characters that it bothered me. But, it's still a very good read. ( )

Its not a bad book but John Irving has done much of the same stuff in other better books. If you want to read an Irving novel don't start here.

It is the story of Jack Burns life from childhood to early middle age. The book is divided into five sections and some are more interesting than others. The first part in the Northern European countries probably the most interesting as Jack and his mother go looking for his father. The next section about Jack's school days in New England are kinda creepy because of the sexual abuse the suffers at a young age. His first abuser a girl named Emma who is over 5 years older than he is becomes his best friend over time and it is their exploits in the movie business that takes up the next part of the book. Once Emma and Jack's mother are off stage and Jack works with a therapist to understand his childhood and the real story of his parents relationship the story wanes. New characters pop up and disappear and in the end I didn't really care what happened I just wanted the story to end. ( )