Avenue of Mysteries

Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving

I didn’t love it. And I like Irving. But my problems were:

Too much lasciviousness. Call me prudish but the erotic content (with Miriam and Dorothy mostly) felt gratuitous rather than purposeful.
Catholic themes felt sacrilegious and unconvincing. I may be too sensitive here, but Irving’s use of Catholic iconography came across as surface-level and hollow. And the theology was too basic to engage with seriously: Juan Diego holds the predictable progressive Catholic positions (pro-choice, anti-Church-on-sexuality) without ever really wrestling with them—they’re held as priors, not arrived at. In contrast, A Prayer for Owen Meany, which I read decades ago and loved; took faith, doubt, and providence a little more seriously.
The heightened reality / myth-making—dump kids, a mind-reading sister, psychic lions—didn’t work for me…or I couldn’t get into it.

— ᴘ. ᴍ. ʙ.

First published: 2026-05-19 | tweet | cast | subscribe