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{{infobox

|title=Last Night in Twisted River

|author=John Irving

|reviewer=John Lloyd

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=672

|publisher=Black Swan

|amazonus=<amazonus>0552776572</amazonus>

}}

We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in a log-cutters' encampment. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind of comfort - a decent job, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting it. But a pair of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to flee. They leave behind a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safety-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generations, will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted River.

This edition contains a brief author's note, admitting that some of the approach to writing that the author here has, bears things in common with that of John Irving. "The kid simply had a gift for storytelling" one character says of our hero - and you can see how that's true with regard to his inventor. If only all doorstops flowed as brilliantly as this.

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