From the first page to the last, there is a goodness to this novel, a tenacious belief in love and the redemptive power of human connection, unfettered by institutions and conventions. This belief, combined with good old-fashioned storytelling, is surely why Irving is so often described as Dickensian. But John Irving is his own thing, and so is his new ... Read morenovel. Avenue of Mysteries is thoroughly modern, accessibly brainy, hilariously eccentric and beautifully human.
Tayari Jones
New York Times Book Review
Irving has packed so much detail in . . . And yet he has not run out of what has endeared him to so many for so long: immense charm, an appetite to hurtle headlong at the biggest questions and the altogether unfashionable belief that sentimentality is not a crime against art
Guardian
Mischievous . . . Challenging and absorbing . . . Juan Diego emerges as one of Irving's most memorable and fascinating creations, which is saying something. He is a twenty-first century Garp.
Herald
Irving has embarked on his dark phase, as did Dickens. It will be interesting, if melancholy, to follow him down that gloomy avenue
The Times
A typically idiosyncratic Irving novel: at times exhausting, at other times rambling and self-indulgent, but always readable, impassioned and thought-provoking
Mail on Sunday
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