“What makes the first sentence of A Prayer for Owen Meany such a good one is that the whole novel is contained in it.” 2. “I may one day write a better first sentence to a novel than that of A Prayer for Owen Meany, but I doubt it," Irving wrote. In the case of Owen Meany, Irving didn't write the first sentence (“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God I am a Christian because of Owen Meany”) until at least a year later. “If I haven’t already written the ending-and I mean more than a rough draft-I can’t write the first sentence.” “I never write the first sentence until I know all the important things that happen in the story, especially-and I mean exactly-what happens at the end of the novel,” he wrote after the book was published. Irving always writes the ends of his novels first, and Owen Meany was no different: He wrote the penultimate paragraph of the novel first, and added the last paragraph two days later. The first sentence of A Prayer for Owen Meany is John Irving’s favorite. Here are a few things you might not have known about it. Author John Irving’s novel about a boy with a “wrecked voice” who believes he’s an instrument of God is a staple on high school summer reading lists.
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