The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp; but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. Though Mr. Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other; but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive.

This is the second book I've read by Irving, and I have to admit he's quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

The book is about two married couples who meet well after they've each established a family and mode of life. Though neither couple seemingly would have considered such a thing before, they begin to swap partners without secrecy. It becomes a normal occurrence for them, and they even go so far as to vacation together.

One of the characters is a wrestling aficionado (not an uncommon occurrence in Irving's writing) and thus you get the title and all sorts of easily accessible wrestling lingo. In fact, he dedicates a chapter to each character in the beginning of the book, establishing background, and he literally divides them by weight class.

Of course, such things as spouse swapping are bound to fall apart, and the reader experiences the full implosion as both couples must deal with their "break-up" and the new dynamic it introduces both into their own marriages and with each other as "friends."

Though the story was a bit more sexually graphic than I'm accustomed to reading, Irving's style captivates me. He is truly a master at craft, plot, and characterization. And best of all, his stories burrow into your being and you can't help but become enthralled with his character's lives.

I look forward to reading more of Irving's work.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

"The 158-Pound Marriage" is Irving's third novel, but it bears the seal of his trademark conversational prose, his sleek sparsity. The man is a prose pro -- even at this early point in his career -- capable of turning the simplest of descriptions into something fulsomely beautiful, larger than the sum of its parts.

However, just because someone knows how to write, that doesn't mean they know what they're writing about. In this book, Irving tries real hard to make a very little look like a whole lot. This reader wasn't fooled.

The story is about an unnamed college professor (who is also an unsuccessful writer of historical fictions) and his Viennese wife, Utchka. At a faculty get-together, they meet another couple: a Viennese German professor/wrestling coach named Severin, and his spoiled wife, Edith. Without much fanfare, the couples start up a spouse-swapping relationship that, of course, ends badly.

That's it. I'm not kidding.

Irving rounds out his dismal and repetitive plot with various anecdotes, some time-flopping devices, and lots of clever (if not over-wrought) character development. Irving is a maverick at populating his books with legitimate and understandable souls; you can feel their pulses in each slim page. The problem here is that every character is despicable. The narrator is myopic and heartless. Severin is petulant and stubborn. Utch is childish and stupid. And Edith is selfish and melodramatic. The real kicker? None of them change. Not at all.

The story's "twists," if they can be called that, are employed solely to make the reader feel like the tale is in motion, that it both arose from and is headed toward something interesting. That's not the case. These people and their histories (especially Utch's) make for some occasionally intriguing reading, but by the last third of the novel, when the couples are mostly just bickering and whining, you'll find it as intriguing as, well, as watching two couples bicker and whine.

Let's not forget the children. That's right. Both couples have two children which exist in the plot like thumbtacks holding up a map of Swingsville. Not only are the kids barely there, but when they DO show up, their presence is announced sportscaster-style by both Irving and the narrator. My guess is that the next-to-last draft of this novel had no kids at all. Just before publication, I bet Irving decided to try to ratchet the stakes up a notch by tossing in a few tykes, expecting they would give all of the self-indulgent sexuality a tincture of doom. He's trying to slap on some import, make the reader aghast, throw the amoral escapades into the light of carelessness, but such a thing would be unnecessary if the story were well-molded to begin with. As such, the overall effect is cheap and tasteless. (Maybe Irving knew this; the narrator himself frequently mentions how it's too bad he hadn't thought of the children more than he did.)

For a story about love and passion, this book is void of either. Never do the characters seem to have any feelings for anyone other than themselves, and even the occasional "erotic" passage is about as sexy as a shattered shower door or stinking wrestling mat. The book takes place at such a remove (not a surprise, since the narrator, like all the characters, has his sights turned mostly on himself) that there's no connection at all, not between the lovers, nor between the spouses, not even with the reader. There's a lot of nice-sounding prose here, but it tells a dull and dismal half-story, one that's not nearly as profound as it is pathetic.

If one views the works of John Irving as a whole, this novel stands out like a sore thumb. Published in 1974, it is, without a doubt, a product of its time - when sexual freedom and experimentation were rampant and menage a quatres, such as described in the novel, were not that uncommon. Although encompassing many of the Irving themes: Vienna, wrestling, infidelity, and his character's propensity for emotionally destroying one another, it lacks the magic and playfulness of his other works. Irving's "story within a story" style is gone and is replaced by a style that seems more suitable to a writer of literary digests than to a novelist, with the result that the reader does not get to know the characters as well as in his other novels nor even really care what happens to them.

When Irving is unable to create characters that the reader cares for, his whole work suffers. In fact, it is Irving's characterizations that are the center of his art. One is hard pressed to name any of his main characters that does not strike a sympathetic note with the reader; even the foolish charlatan, Bogus Trumper (The Water-Method Man), has his charming side and at least sugggests that he has learned from this mistakes and is ready to make another go of it. Not so in this novel. All four characters are fairly reprehensible. The un-named narrator, a tenured professor of history whose historical novels are not even recognized as "publications" by his department; his wife, Utch, an Austrian refugee from World War II, who confuses a cow for her mother (you'll have to read the book!); the Viennese wrestling coach and professor of German, Severin Winter, and his svelte wife and aspiring writer, Edith, all come across as caricatures rather than as real characters.

The story of the sexual escapades that seemingly consume their fairly boring lives is told in almost clinical terms and lacks any of the passion that, one would hope, would come from such a shared arrangement. As the narrator relates the story of self-absorption, self-delusion, and sexual dalliance, the reader comes to realize why the narrator's historical novels quickly go out of print and are not recognized by his colleages as serious works - he is a mediocre writer, and for a historian, oblivious to the lessons of history. But in spite of all the shortcomings of the main characters, Irving shines a penlight of hope that perhaps not all is totally lost. The two Austrians, having survived World War II and its aftermath, have their feet on much firmer ground than do the two Americans, and one gets the faintest of impressions that maybe, just maybe, the Winters will get back together and learn something from this experience, and that even the most injured of the quartet, Utch, will perhaps pull things together. As for the narrator, the reader knows with certainty that he will continue to live on the periphery, always attempting those things for which he is marked for failure.

Being brand new to John Irving, I decided to grab the smallest novel he wrote to see what his writing style was like. This novel provides the story of two couples and their wife swapping, intermingled with their past histories.

I found the history and back story somewhat interesting, but not mundane minglings in the midst of war atrocities, art dealings, college wrestling tournaments, and in their suburban family life.

However, the mundane nature of their lives, even though appropriate in terms of sticking with the plot, doesn't tend to a page turner. The terse language and lack of fluidity also makes this book a somewhat chore to read.

While it an interesting look at love and personal relationships, the lack of anything compelling with below average fluidity means that I can't really recommend this book.

The above being the 4 things Irving is most known for in his books. Thank God there are no bears in this one. What is present are 2 couples who mutually agree to swap lovers to spice up their lives. Only something happens that hurts this little arrangement: husband and wife from marriage #1 fall in love with the wife and husband from marriage #2. Only, the feelings aren't reciprocated. Jealousy, competitiveness, contempt, and bitterness follow. The couples' children are totally ignored except when one of them is almost killed by a faulty shower door.

In situations like this, the story can never have a happy ending.

Sidenote: The "158 Pound" title refers to the different weight classes in wrestling. 158 lbs is the heaviest.