What Irving demonstrates beautifully is that a one-to-one relationship is more demanding than a free-for-all. The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a mnage a quatre in a New England. The 158-Pound Marriage is as lean and concentrated as a mine shaft.”-Terrence Des Pres The 158-Pound marriage by Irving, John, 1942-Publication date 1986 Topics Fiction in English American writers, 1945- Texts Publisher London : Black Swan Press. “One of the most remarkable things about John Irving's first three novels, viewed from the vantage of The World According to Garp, is that they can be read as one extended fictional enterprise. Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive. The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this sensual, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. The average reader, reading at a speed of 300 WPM, would take 2 hours and 55 minutes to read The 158-Pound Marriage. “Irving looks cunningly beyond the eye-catching gyrations of the mating dance to the morning-after implications.”- The Washington Post
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