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About the Book

About the Book

The Last Chairlift

John Irving’s 15th novel is “powerfully cinematic” (The Washington Post) and “eminently readable” (The Boston Globe). THE LAST CHAIRLIFT is part ghost story, part love story, spanning eight decades of sexual politics.

In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor.

Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts. In THE LAST CHAIRLIFT, they aren’t the first or the last ghosts he sees.

John Irving has written some of the most acclaimed books of our time --- among them, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP and THE CIDER HOUSE RULES. A visionary voice on the subject of sexual tolerance, Irving is a bard of alternative families. In the “generously intertextual” (The New York Times) THE LAST CHAIRLIFT, readers will once more be in his thrall.

Audiobook available; read by Jacques Roy, featuring a supporting ensemble

The Last Chairlift
by John Irving

  • Publication Date: October 3, 2023
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Paperback: 912 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • ISBN-10: 150118928X
  • ISBN-13: 9781501189289