A Hindi film star, an American missionary, a pair of twins separated at birth, a diminutive chauffeur, and a serial killer collide in a riotous novel by the author of The World According to Garp

His most entertaining novel since Garp. -The New York Times Book Review

A Son of the Circus is comic genius … get ready for [John] 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

Irresistible … powerful … Irving’s gift for dialogue shines. -Chicago Tribune