John Irving's eleventh novel: set in Canada and New England, as well as Hollywood and the North Sea ports of Europe, it is epic in scope, and Irving's most ambitious and moving work to date. Full of surprises and dead sexy, this is vintage Irving.
'Until I Find You' is 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 - Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki and Amsterdam. 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 goes to schools in Canada and New England, but what shapes him are his relationships with older women. Mr 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 Jack heard as a child in European churches.
