Avenue Of Mysteries

Longlisted for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award

“John Irving’s Avenue of Mysteries weaves a rich international tapestry that dwells equally in memory and uncontrollable imagination . . . . Where Avenue of Mysteries shines best is in its characterizations of Juan Diego. . . . Full of page-turner twists and surprises, Mysteries is doubtless one of the year’s most original—and uniquely fulfilling—mainstream novels. . . . Mysteries is a journey well worth taking, the rare breed of book that causes readers to mourn the lack of more pages.” —Mark Hamilton, Reader’s Digest

John Irving returns to the themes that established him as one of North America's most admired and beloved storytellers in this absorbing novel of fate and memory.

As we grow older--most of all, in what we remember and what we dream--we live in the past. Sometimes, we live more vividly in the past than in the present.

As an older man, Juan Diego will take a trip to the Philippines, but what travels with him are his dreams and memories; he is most alive in his childhood and early adolescence in Mexico. "An aura of fate had marked him," John Irving writes, of Juan Diego. "The chain of events, the links in our lives--what leads us where we're going, the courses we follow to our ends, what we don't see coming, and what we do--all this can be mysterious, or simply unseen, or even obvious."

Avenue of Mysteries is the story of what happens to Juan Diego in the Philippines, where what happened to him in the past--in Mexico--collides with his future.