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