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Title: Huge Disappointment.
Review: Having read every published work by John Irving (yes, I even suffered through Setting Free the Bears), I look forward to each new novel.Typically the multi-year wait is rewarded with what I call "book-gasm". The Fourth Hand doesn't even get to verbal foreplay.The characters are weak, uninteresting individuals who never develop and about whom I never am able to care. The book further suffers from a conspicuous absence of plot. Which, normally, is not a problem since Mr. Irving's books are usually so strongly character-driven.I felt that I was reading either a first draft or a cheap romance novel. The clever turns-of-phrase and complications of sexual character that mark Mr. Irving's novels -- also absent. [....]
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