Last Night in Twisted River is a 2009 novel by American writer John Irving, his 12th since 1968. It was first published (in English) in the Netherlands by De Bezige Bij on September 1, 2009, in Canada by Knopf Canada on October 20, 2009, and in the United States by Random House on October 27, 2009. The novel spans five decades and is about a boy and his father who flee the logging community of Twisted River on the Androscoggin River in northern New Hampshire after a tragic accident. While on the run, the boy grows up to become a famous writer, writing eight semi-autobiographical novels. The book was included in Times 2009 list of "the fall's most anticipated movies, books, TV shows, albums and exhibits".
Last Night in Twisted River took 20 years to conceive and write, and is a story within a story that shows the development of a novelist and the writing process. It uses many of the themes and plot devices that have already seen treatment in other works by the author. The career of the novelist in the book closely tracks the career of Irving himself, making it Irving's most overtly autobiographical novel.
The book received mixed reviews in the press. The Independent called it Irving's most powerful work to date, while The Dallas Morning News admired Irving's modern version of the traditional flight and revenge theme. The New York Times was not as impressed and felt that with better editing it could have equaled some of Irving's more powerful works. The St. Petersburg Times described the novel as a "loose and baggy tale in search of a center".
Plot
The novel opens in 1954 in the small logging settlement of Twisted River on the Androscoggin River in northern New Hampshire. A log driving accident on the river has just claimed the life of a young logger, Angel, who slipped and fell under the logs. Dominic Baciagalupo is the camp's Italian-American cook who lives above the kitchen with his 12-year-old son, Daniel. Dominic lost his wife, Rosie, 10 years previously when a drunk Dominic, Rosie and a logger and mutual friend, Ketchum, were dancing on the frozen river, and the ice broke and Rosie went under. Later another accident happens that changes the lives of Dominic, Daniel and Ketchum. "Injun Jane", the kitchen's dishwasher and girlfriend of the local law officer, Constable Carl, is having an affair with Dominic. One night, mistaking her for a bear attacking his father, Daniel kills her with an eight-inch cast-iron skillet. Dominic takes Jane's body and deposits it on the kitchen floor of Carl's house, knowing that Carl will be passed out drunk and will probably believe he killed her, as he often beat her up. Early the next morning Dominic and Daniel tell Ketchum what happened and flee Twisted River in case the bad-tempered Carl finds out what really happened.
Dominic and Daniel head for a restaurant in the Italian North End of Boston to tell Angel's mother of her son's death. Dominic gets a job as a cook in the restaurant and changes his surname to Del Popolo (Angel's mother's surname) to hide from Carl. During this time Daniel attends Exeter, a private school in southern New Hampshire, followed by the University of New Hampshire. While at university Daniel starts writing his first novel. He also meets Katie Callahan, a radical art student, whom he agrees to marry. Katie has one mission in life: to make potential Vietnam War draftees fathers, thus enabling them to apply for paternity deferment. Daniel and Katie have a son whom they name Joe, but when Joe is 2, Katie leaves Daniel to find another young man to rescue from the war. Daniel moves to Iowa with Joe, where he enrolls in the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He also changes his name to Danny Angel to hide from Carl, and uses this nom de plume to publish his novels. After graduating from the Writers' Workshop in 1967, Danny and Joe move to Putney, Vermont.
Ketchum keeps in touch with both Dominic and Danny via telephone and letters, and warns them that Carl is looking for them. On Ketchum's advice, Dominic leaves Boston to join Danny in Vermont. He changes his name to Tony Angel, father of the writer Danny Angel. While Danny teaches writing at Windham College, Tony opens and runs his own restaurant. After the publication of his fourth and most successful novel, Kennedy Fathers (based on Katie), Danny stops teaching and focuses on writing. Then in 1983, two of the sawmill's wives in Twisted River are passing through Vermont and stop for a meal at Tony's restaurant. They recognize Tony and later tell Carl where "Cookie" is. Again, on Ketchum's advice, the father and son are forced to flee, this time to Toronto, Ontario.
With their cover blown, Tony and Danny revert to their original names. Dominic finds another restaurant to work in, while Danny continues writing, still under his pseudonym. Joe remains in the United States while at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Danny meets a Canadian screenwriter named Charlotte Turner, who is writing the screenplay of Danny's abortion novel East of Bangor. They decide to marry, but only after Joe graduates. When Joe dies in a car accident in 1987, Danny decides he cannot face the possibility of ever losing another child, and he and Charlotte part ways. He retains the right to a lonely cabin on an island in Georgian Bay at Pointe au Baril, owned by Charlotte, which he uses for his writing.
In 2001, Ketchum gets careless and unwittingly leads Carl to Dominic and Danny's house in Toronto. Carl shoots and kills Dominic and Danny retaliates by shooting and killing Carl. Ketchum is devastated at having failed to protect his friends and takes his own life at Twisted River. Danny, who has now lost his mother, father, son and their friend, tries to focus on writing his next book, a follow-up to his previous eight semi-autobiographical novels. Then his last hope, Amy ("Lady Sky"), arrives on his doorstep. When Joe was 2, Amy had parachuted naked onto a pig farm Danny and Joe were visiting. Danny rescued Amy from the pig pen and Joe, awe-struck by this event, called her "Lady Sky". Amy in turn offered to help Danny whenever he needed it. Having read all about the famous writer and his misfortunes, Amy tracks Danny down and moves in with him. Happy now, Danny finds the opening sentence of his new book: "The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long."
Main charactersDominic Baciagalupo ("Cookie") / Dominic Del Popolo / Tony Angel – An Italian-American logging company cook in Twisted River in northern New Hampshire. His father, who had absconded before he was born, had the name "Capodilupo" ("Head of the Wolf"), but his mother named him "Baciacalupo" ("Kiss of the Wolf"), which later became "Baciagalupo" due to a clerical error. He damaged his ankle in a logging accident at the age of 12, giving him a permanent limp, after which his mother taught him how to cook to keep him away from the logs. He changes his name to "Del Popolo" in Boston, and to "Tony Angel" (father of the famous writer) in Vermont, to escape the attentions of Constable Carl from whom he and his son are fleeing. He is overprotective of his son, Daniel, and later his grandson, Joe.Daniel Baciagalupo / Danny Angel – Dominic's son and kitchen assistant in Twisted River. He is a "Kennedy father" and a famous writer of eight semi-autobiographical novels. He writes under the pseudonym of Danny Angel (after Angel, the young logger who died in Twisted River), a name he also assumed in real life to foil Constable Carl. He is attracted to large older women and is overprotective of his father, Dominic, and his son, Joe.Ketchum – A logger in Twisted River who lives permanently in the northern New Hampshire logging camps. His first name is never revealed. He was once married, but is estranged from his children, and had no education beyond the age of 12. He is Dominic's best friend, and is overprotective of Dominic and Daniel; he is their self-appointed "advisor" at Twisted River, and when they are abroad, via telephone, letters, and later, fax (he never discovered email).Rosina Calogero ("Rosie") – Dominic's mother's cousin's daughter and his "not-really-a-cousin" wife. She was exiled to Berlin, New Hampshire by her family because she was pregnant, and taken in by Dominic's mother. After his mother died, Dominic (aged 17, he lied about his age to be married while still a minor) and Rosie (aged 24) married and moved to Twisted River. She was a teacher college graduate, and taught at the school in nearby Paris, Maine."Injun Jane" – A 300-pound American Indian dishwasher in the Twisted River cookhouse and Daniel's part-time "babysitter". Her real name is not known. She lost her own son years previously and is fond of Daniel. She is Constable Carl's girlfriend and he regularly beats her up when he is drunk.Constable Carl ("Cowboy") – The local law officer in Twisted River who spends his time breaking up bar-fights and sending French Canadians looking for work back to Quebec. He is often drunk and foul-mouthed, and he regularly beats up his girlfriends. He acquired the nickname "Cowboy" because of his erratic and unpredictable behavior.Katie Callahan – Daniel's wife while at the University of New Hampshire. They met while posing nude as models in life-drawing classes when Daniel was a junior undergraduate and Katie a senior. She is an anti-war activist and a sexual anarchist. She "rescues" young men from the Vietnam War by marrying and fathering a child with them. She sleeps around and is not a dedicated mother.Joe Baciagalupo – Daniel and Katie's son, named after Joe Polcari, the maître d' at the Vicino di Napoli restaurant in Boston where Dominic worked as a cook. He retained the Baciagalupo name, despite his father and grandfather changing theirs. He inherited his mother's "wild side" and is known to be careless and take risks.Charlotte Turner – Daniel's intended wife in Toronto, Ontario. She is a Canadian screenwriter Danny meets while she is writing the screenplay for his abortion novel, East of Bangor. After they split up, she goes on to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay of Danny's novel.Amy Martin ("Lady Sky") – Daniel's last love in Toronto. She is given the name "Lady Sky" by Daniel's 2-year-old son Joe after she parachuted naked into a pig pen in Iowa. "Martin" is her maiden name, which she reverted to after a failed marriage and the death of her son.Pam ("Six-Pack")''' - Ketchum nick named her Six-Pack based on his estimate of her nightly beer quota before she switched to Bourbon. A resident of Twisted River who had a long term on-again, off-again relationship with Ketchum and was also once Carl’s girlfriend. She wrote Ketchum’s letters to Dom and Danny since he was a closet illiterate for a lot of his life.
Background Although this was his 12th published novel, Irving said that Last Night in Twisted River was "20 years in the making". The idea for a novel about a cook and his son on the run had been in the back of his mind for as long ago as 1986. Irving, who likes to start his novels with the last sentence, said in an interview with The Independent in October 2009: "For the longest time the last sentence eluded me, but 20 years ago I imagined a novel about a cook and his young son who become fugitives; who have to run from some violent act that will follow them. And it was always in a kind of frontier town — a place where there was one law, and it was one man, who was single-minded and bad." Irving did not start writing the novel until 2005. Speaking to the BBC World Service in October 2009, Irving explained that he found that last sentence on his way to a doctor's appointment. He said an old Bob Dylan CD was playing "Tangled Up in Blue" in his car, and when he heard the lyrics:I had a job in the great north woodsWorking as a cook for a spellBut I never did like it all that muchAnd one day the ax just fell