A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity,
In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love - tormented, funny, and affecting - and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a 'sexual suspect', a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 - in his landmark novel of 'terminal cases', The World According to Garp.
His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving's
In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy's friends and lovers - a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least,
In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself 'worthwhile'. This wonderful novel is an epic, moving survey of 70 years of sexual revolution * The Times * Deeply enjoyable... a comic celebration of polymorphous perversity, and of literature * Guardian * Irving has rarely written with the gorgeous poise and control he musters here * Financial Times *
In One Person gives a lot. It's funny, as you would expect. It's risky in what it exposes. Tolerance, in a John Irving novel is not about anything goes; it's what happens when we face our own desires honestly, whether we act on them or not -- Jeanette Winterson A brave and hugely affecting depiction of how in one life (sexual and otherwise) we contain multitudes * Elle *
In One Person