Happy Birthday to John Irving! I have already gushed about Irving recently, so I will not repeat myself. Here is the first line of A Prayer for Owen Meany, the novel that began my love affair with Irving.
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.
—Jane, always thinks of Owen as the Ghost of Christmas Future