Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving -- His most autobiographical novel yet?

If you are as big a fan of John Irving as I am and you've read his latest novel, you might have shook your head throughout, thinking, "Hmmm, that's what he did. Yep, he did that too."

Last Night in Twisted River is the story of John Irving's writing life. The years match. The books match. The long time between book publications match. His writing style matches; he writes the last sentence first as did Danny Angel in LNITR.  Angel doesn't sign books; he writes them. Neither does Irving.

I'm not so sure about the rest. I'm not so sure about these themes:

• semicolons:  Did he use them as much previously as the writer Danny Angel [who is obviously Irving]? I don't know though he used a wonderful smattering of them in this novel.
• farting dogs
• cooking
• a cursed left hand
• a naked sky diver
• big women, lots of big women frequent this novel
• bears:  Irving finally included bears again. His early novels nearly always had bears and wrestling. I was glad to see bears back in this one.

All in all, I loved this one. Some of the characters who are bigger than life--Ketchum, Six-Pack Pam, Amy--are reminiscent of Melony from The Cider House Rules (his finest book, my favorite book of all time) and T.S.Garp.

Book Read:  Last Night in Twisted River
Author:  John Irving
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6384-0