'The doctor was fated to go back to Bombay; he would keep returning again and again - if not forever, at least for as long as there were dwarves in the circus.'
Born a Parsi in Bombay, sent to university and medical school in Vienna, Dr Farrokh Daruwalla is a Canadian citizen - a 59-year-old orthopaedic surgeon, living in Toronto. Once, twenty years ago, Dr Daruwalla was the examining physician of two murder victims in Goa. Now, two decades later, the doctor will be reacquainted with the murderer...
About the Author
John Irving is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Born and raised in New Hampshire, Irving's most successful novels include The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, A Prayer For Owen Meany and A Widow for One Year. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on the film adaptation of The Cider House Rules in 1999. He currently splits his time between Vermont and Toronto.
Industry Reviews
"Daruwalla is another iconic Irving figure... Irving handles this incarnadine combination of farce and horror with high speed skill, creating a compulsively readable book" - Guardian
"[Irving] is at the peak of his powers... he plunges the reader into one sensual or grotesque scene after another with cheerful vigour and a madcap tenderness for life... entertainment on a grand scale" - Economist
"More plot twists than the Ramayana and a cast of characters that includes dwarves, prostitutes, movie stars, tranvestites and at least one serial killer" - Daily Telegraph
"Irving has given us that treat of treats, a wide-ranging fiction of massive design and length that encapsulates our world with intelligence and sugars the pill with wit" - Mail on Sunday
"Daruwalla's quest for the truth is what sustains this book... a writer with the courage to follow this difficult journey while also exploring issues of poverty, racism and disease in a novel so full of humour is a writer to be treasured" - The Times
"Irving's nimble humor springs from compassionate insights into cultural and sexual confusion and alienation, baffling questions of faith and purpose, and the kind of hope that thrives in even the most jaded atmosphere." - Donna Seaman, Booklist
"A SON OF THE CIRCUS IS COMIC GENIUS....GET READY FOR IRVING'S MOST RAUCOUS NOVEL TO DATE." - The Boston Globe
"Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla, reared in Bombay by maverick foes of tradition, educated in Vienna, married to an Austrian and long a resident of Toronto, is a 59-year-old without a country, culture or religion to call his own... The novel may not be 'about' India, but Irving's imagined India, which Daruwalla visits periodically, is a remarkable achievement - a pandemonium of servants and clubmen, dwarf clowns and transvestite whores, missionaries and movie stars. This is a land of energetic colliding egos, of modern media clashing with ancient cultures, of broken sexual boundaries." - New York Newsday
"HIS MOST DARING AND MOST VIBRANT NOVEL... The story of circus-as-India is told with gusto and delightful irreverence." - Bharati Mukherjee, The Washington Post Book World
"Ringmaster Irving introduces act after act, until three (or more) rings are awhirl at a lunatic pace... [He] spills characters from his imagination as agilely as improbable numbers of clowns pile out of a tiny car... His Bombay and his Indian characters are vibrant and convincing." - The Wall Street Journal
