The Last Chairlift by John Irving

 

Adam Brewster grows up in an unconventional family.  His mother, Little Ray, is a ski instructor and isn't home for ski season.  Adam is raised by his grandparents, a mother who loves the novel Moby Dick and a grandfather with early onset dementia.  He comes to realize that his mother is gay and in love with Molly, another woman who works the ski resorts.  No one knows who his father is but as Adam is old enough for middle school his mother marries the English teacher, a man who is even shorter than she is and who becomes the father Adam never had.  His cousin Nora is also gay with a lover, Em, who doesn't speak out of choice.  

Over the years, this family lives in situations that allow them to live with whom they love while maintaining outward conventionality as much as possible.  Adam eventually discovers who his father is and manages to meet him and his family before his death.  Adam is a novelist who eventually marries and has a son and ends up living in Canada.  His out of the ordinary family teaches him that family matters above all and that love is the most important thing to have.

John Irving is eighty now and this may be the last novel we see from him.  It has the quirky characters and offbeat occurrences that are a trademark of his writing.  The novel is almost nine hundred pages and it could have used some editing as there is a lot of repetition of scenes and themes.  Irving is a national treasure and his novels have explored the lives of those who choose to live differently and to champion love.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.