who are always right, and are given to reminding us of it, are irritating; prophets are irritating, and Owen Meany is decidedly a prophet. Because I don't start a novel until I know the ending, every novel of mine is predestined. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, it was not that much of a stretch to make the main character aware {to some degree} of his own predestination. After all, I am always aware of the predestination of my characters. In Owen's case, he bears the terrible burden of foreseeing his own death. His tenacious faith tells him that even his death-like his size, like his voice, like practicing the shot-is for a reason. Separate from the Vietnam background and the apparent religious miracle, A Prayer for Owen Meany is also a novel about the loss of childhood, which I thought was best signified by the loss of a childhood friend. People are always losing things in my novels-not just, as Johnny Wheelwright does, a finger and a mother and a best friend. In my first novel, Setting Free the Bears, another best friend is lost-stung to death by bees! In my second and third novels, The Water-Method Man and The 158-Pound
( John Irving )
[ A Prayer for Owen Meany ]
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