A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: Book Summary
He Asked Us Not To Lift HIm
In John Irving's epic novel A Prayer For Owen Meany we are presented with the title character in a scene where the Sunday school class was misbehaving and lifting up Owen over their heads, passing the boy around the room until the teacher came back into the room from smoking to scold Owen for being out of his seat.
In his loud screeching voice which made many wonder if he was hearing impaired or had a crushed larynx, Owen claims that he demanded he be put down but no one would listen to his cries.
Owen was described as unusually small, hideous even to some but it never states a true condition of the boy if malformed other than his dwarfish stature. As the book passes between the modern day Reagan years, narrated by Johnny, the son of a prominent family in the town, where the Meany's only ran a mine and Owen was always described as being rather dusty as the coal dust shook from his clothes. Johnny narrates between growing up in the early 50's and 60's as Owen's best friend, at first his only real friend and how the death of the man that he had come to admire after Vietnam, was lain to rest.
Johnny was never religious, neither was Owen, or to any one real religion until after the incident that had killed Johnny's mother at the hand of Owen.
Johnny's mother changed churches as often as boyfriends, and his father had never been revealed to him, even family claiming that his mother had never told them of the identity of the father leading to speculations.
In the flashbacks, Johnny and Owen spent much of their time pondering who Johnny's father might be until his mother fell into a long engagement with a man named Dan who became the father that Johnny never had.
Put me down, Owen would insist, his every line in the novel from his first squeak typed in all capital letters, calling attention not only to the words of the character but his later Apostle type figurehead that he had become for those that he inspired after the death of Johnny's mother at a baseball game.
The Baseball Game
Settled in with her new man, Dan who was charming enough for the wealthy family but "only a theater teacher", in the eyes of Johnny's grandmother- Dan was both an inspiration to Owen and Johnny early in their friendship sharing one of his treasures a stuffed armadillo with the boys who found pleasure by hiding the taxidermist animal where it could be "accidentally found" by others- including a bunch of Johnny's wild cousins who tormented him with their games of "The Loser has to Kiss Hester," the younger sister of the wild siblings.
The first time Hester lays eyes on Owen she screams, swearing she didn't know that he was human, leading more speculation to what other congenital disorders Owen could have had.
Owen, taking no offense to the remark extended his hand in friendship and tried to compliment and bond with the cousins anyway and they didn't know what to make of Johnny's strange new friend.
In further efforts to have their son blend in with the rest of the crowd, the Meany's agreed to let Owen, who was at the top of his class, attend the boarding school where Dan taught and Johnny's family promised to help pay for the things his scholarship wouldn't cover. The Meany's also allowed Owen to join the baseball team leading to the fatal accident.
In a move unexpected by anyone on the field or in the stands, Owen connected with his first ball of the season driving a ball hard into the stands, striking Johnny's young mother in the temple. She fell as if in slow motion, but the knock to the head had already taken her life before she had hit the ground and there was nothing to be done at the hospital.
The Meany family tried to show their empathy by making a gravestone for her, Johnny staying away from his friend in his grieving. One day Owen had sent over all his baseball cards that he cherished to Johnny to show how sorry he was about the accident.
Johnny asked Dan, whom he went back and forth between living with and his grandmother until the end of his teen years, what was the best way to show Owen that he accepted the apology.
Dan suggested sending the armadillo to show that he loved Owen too and that their bond was still intact.
The Play
Flashing back to time before her death, Dan and Johnny's mother were already starting a community theater putting on small productions with members of their church and other neighbors. Johnny was astonished to learn that his mother was a natural on stage, not finding out later about her other identity that had lead her to finding his father when she was moonlighting in bars as a lounge singer- something that Dan knew but no one else in the family had.
Performing as "The Lady In Red", Johnny and Owen were able to track down a dressmaker and one of her frequent haunts but had given up their search for finding Johnny's father not long after realizing it had been Dan that had been in his life through his teen years and it really didn't matter where he came from. Dan admits later he did know who the father was but since Johnny didn't care anymore he never divulges the information to the reader.
The first plays performed were Christmas pageants, which after Owen's experience with the baseball felt that he was the instrument of God now and that he understood what others didn't about religion and the nature of God.
Pointing out flaws like the turtle doves, and how somber faced Mary and Joseph should be in the manger, Owen himself insisted that he should recast the players into roles that he felt fit them better, putting himself in the shoes of the Christ child. Although he was a teenager wrapped up in many blankets, Owen's version of Him was powerful, and even found a way to inject some dialogue and rearrange the music.
Owen's next hand at helping with the plays was in the form of The Christmas Carol in which he cast himself as the Ghost of the Future that leads Scrooge wordlessly into looking back on his past deeds in his life.
Everyone around Owen began to feel touched because of his work on the plays and somehow through him, they were opening up new parts of themselves with Owen in the role as teacher.
Owen even worked on an original play hoping to get the true father of Johnny into the audience by staging a play based on the information they had learned about Johnny's mother and her secret life as "The Lady In Red."
As he grew older, bolder, Owen was no longer the squeaky child but a teen that even adults looked up to after he had taught them something about themselves in his own way, stating that he knew the truths of the universe. Hester that once was afraid of Owen became his girlfriend in the later years, bring Johnny even closer to his best friend.
The Voice
As outspoken as he could be in public when showing the wrongs of those around him and educating through tolerance, Owen had a wild streak in him after he began boarding school and took to writing a column in the newspaper called The Voice.
Typing in the same all capitalized words that he speech seemed to be, the words jumped off the page and Owen shouted essays on everything from the how schools treated students to the impending Vietnam War.
While being crass at times, Owen's words were remarkable and people couldn't help but take notice of the young man's opinions.
The Voice while, being controversial and often on the chopping block fro the newspaper due to Owen's truthful voice, was gaining the attention of all that could get their hands on his words.
Once the weird boy that had killed a woman with a baseball on accident, Owen was becoming a pillar of his community and many found him divine in nature.
A Town Remembers Heroism
During Vietnam, Owen convinces Johnny and Hester that they will be safer out of the US, and Johnny after high school spends the next twenty years as a citizen of Canada only returning to visit his grandmother up until her death and then Dan as much as he could until the end of his life.
One of the trips back, Johnny had to bury the man that had been his friend since they were young, the often misunderstood and picked on Owen Meany.
Owen once had a vision about the day that he was going to die. He knew that he wouldn't be afraid, as it had to do with something important. Finding out that Owen was actually a middle name after his friend's vision that had explained the stone in the future; here it was reading Paul Owen Meany Jr, just as Owen predicted.
The entire town had come out for Owen's funeral. It wasn't that his heroism in his last moments of life had saved children trapped in an area near a bomb, it was the heroic acts that that had all changed everyone around him through his optimism, and often criticism of their lack of understanding the world around them.
Owen, to them was a prophet and an Apostle. He taught those around him to believe in themselves.
At his funeral one of the girls from Sunday school asked the familiar question of "Why was Owen always so small and light?" It was answered, because God was already holding him in his arms.
A Prayer For Owen Meany is an emotionally moving novel with many parts humorous cursing of childhood to moments that really make you question the nature of man.
I only came across this book on the "Must Read" table at the library, not realizing that this was the author of Cider House Rules and was lured in just by the book jacket alone.
A Prayer For Owen Meany is one of those magical books that stays with you long after you close the cover.
