{"product_id":"the-water-method-man-9780345418005","title":"The Water-Method Man","description":"\u003cb\u003e“John Irving, it is abundantly clear, is a true artist.”—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFred \"Bogus\" Trumper has troubles. A divorced, broke graduate student of Old Norse in 1970s New York, Trumper is a wayward knight-errant in the battle of the sexes and the pursuit of happiness: His ex-wife has moved in with his childhood best friend, his life is the subject of a tell-all movie, and his chronic urinary tract infection requires surgery. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrumper is determined to change. There's only one problem: it seems the harder he tries to alter his adolescent ways, the more he is drawn to repeating the mistakes of the past. . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten when Irving was twenty-nine, Trumper's tale of woe is told with all the wit and humor that would become Irving's trademark.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Three or four times as funny as most novels.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003cb\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Water-Method Man\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Friendship, marriage, and family are his primary themes, but at that blundering level of life where mishap and folly—something close to joyful malice—perpetually intrude and distrupt, often fatally. Life, in [John] Irving's fiction, is always under siege. Harm and disarray are daily fare, as if the course of love could not run true. . . . Irving's multiple manner . . . his will to come at the world from different directions, is one of the outstandint traits of \u003ci\u003eThe World According to Garp, \u003c\/i\u003ebut this remarkable flair for . . . stories inside stories . . . isalready handled with mastery . . . and with a freedom almost wanton in \u003ci\u003eThe Water-Method Man\u003c\/i\u003e [which is Garp's predecessor by six years].”\u003cb\u003e—Terrence Des Pres\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Brutal reality and hallucination, comedy and pathos. A rich, unified tapestry.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTime\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Random House Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"STANDARD","offer_id":62248999715203,"sku":"9780345418005","price":20.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0907\/8456\/3587\/files\/9780345418005.jpg?v=1785414973","url":"https:\/\/shopcomics.eu\/products\/the-water-method-man-9780345418005","provider":"Shop Comics EU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}