Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving

 

In this novel, the reader meets Dominic Baciagalupo, a chef and his son, Daniel along with Donimic's best friend Ketchum.  They meet and grow close at a logging camp where Ketchum is a logger and Dominic the cook who feeds all those who work there.  One night a tragedy occurs that puts Dominic and Daniel on the run, fleeing from a vengeful deputy who is determined to kill Dominic.

The two spend the next forty years running.  They move to Boston, to Ohio, to Vermont and to Toronto.  Along the way, the reader meets wonderful characters from the Italian chefs in Boston who take Dominic under their wing, to various women who inhabit the lives of the two men over the years to the birth of Daniel's son Joe.  Daniel grows up to be a successful author although he has to write under a pen name.  The two men share a love and relationship that is not commonly found in the world's hustle bustle but underneath it all is the thrumming of tragedy, both those in the past and those yet to come.

I loved this novel as I've loved everything John Irving has ever written.  The characters are wonderful and the storyline is complex yet satisfactorily resolved.  Readers will learn about the logging industry, about a culture where hunting and guns are a part of life and about how love finds one wherever one goes.  The love between this father and son and then grandson is compelling and the focal point of the story.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.