In One Person

From the award-winning author of A Prayer for Owen Meany, “his most daringly political, sexually transgressive, and moving novel in well over a decade” (Vanity Fair).

A New York Times–bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp.

In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

“In One Person gives a lot. It’s funny, as you would expect. It’s risky in what it exposes. . . . Tolerance, in a John Irving novel, is not about anything goes. It’s what happens when we face our own desires honestly, whether we act on them or not.” —Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times Book Review

“It is impossible to imagine the American—or international—literary landscape without John Irving. . . . He is as close as one gets to a contemporary Dickens.” —Time

“There’s a talent at work in this brave new novel that—as Prospero said—‘frees all faults.’” —The Washington Post