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    Setting Free the Bears

    A Novel

    Author John Irving
    Ebook
    Ballantine Group | Ballantine Books
    On sale May 15, 2018 | 304 Pages | 9781984800084
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    “Truly remarkable . . . encompasses the longings and agonies of youth . . . a complex and moving novel.”—Time

    “Astonishing . . . a writer of uncommon imaginative power. Whatever [John Irving] writes, it will be worth reading.”—Saturday Review

    It is 1967. Two Viennese university students, Siggy and Hannes, roam the Austrian countryside on their motorcycles—on a quest: to liberate the bears of the Vienna Zoo. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences in this first novel from John Irving, already a master storyteller at twenty-five years old.

    “Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey . . . and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot rod through Mr. Irving's book . . . tossing flowers, stealing salt shakers, and planning the biggest caper of their young lives.”—The New York Times
    © Katherine Holland
    JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. He is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

    In 1980, Mr. Irving won a National Book Award for his novel The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screeplay for The Cider House Rules.In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person. Internationally renowned, his novels have been translated into almost forty languages. His all-time bestselling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany. 

    A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto. Queen Esther is his sixteenth novel. View titles by John Irving
    “Truly remarkable . . . encompasses the longings and agonies of youth . . . a complex and moving novel.”—Time

    “Astonishing . . . a writer of uncommon imaginative power. Whatever [John Irving] writes, it will be worth reading.”—Saturday Review

    “Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey . . . and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot rod through Mr. Irving's book . . . tossing flowers, stealing salt shakers, and planning the bigest caper of their young lives.”—The New York Times

    About

    “Truly remarkable . . . encompasses the longings and agonies of youth . . . a complex and moving novel.”—Time

    “Astonishing . . . a writer of uncommon imaginative power. Whatever [John Irving] writes, it will be worth reading.”—Saturday Review

    It is 1967. Two Viennese university students, Siggy and Hannes, roam the Austrian countryside on their motorcycles—on a quest: to liberate the bears of the Vienna Zoo. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences in this first novel from John Irving, already a master storyteller at twenty-five years old.

    “Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey . . . and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot rod through Mr. Irving's book . . . tossing flowers, stealing salt shakers, and planning the biggest caper of their young lives.”—The New York Times

    Author

    © Katherine Holland
    JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. He is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

    In 1980, Mr. Irving won a National Book Award for his novel The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screeplay for The Cider House Rules.In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person. Internationally renowned, his novels have been translated into almost forty languages. His all-time bestselling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany. 

    A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, John Irving lives in Toronto. Queen Esther is his sixteenth novel. View titles by John Irving

    Praise

    “Truly remarkable . . . encompasses the longings and agonies of youth . . . a complex and moving novel.”—Time

    “Astonishing . . . a writer of uncommon imaginative power. Whatever [John Irving] writes, it will be worth reading.”—Saturday Review

    “Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey . . . and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot rod through Mr. Irving's book . . . tossing flowers, stealing salt shakers, and planning the bigest caper of their young lives.”—The New York Times

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