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158 Pound Marriage Paperback - 1978
by irving, John
- Used
- very good
- Paperback
Description
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Details
- Title 158 Pound Marriage
- Author irving, John
- Binding Paperback
- Edition First Edition
- Condition Used - Very Good
- Pages 255
- Language ENG
- Publisher Pocket Books, New York
- Date 1978
- Bookseller's Inventory # 157334
- ISBN 9780671822538
About this book
The 158-Pound Marriage, author John Irving's third published novel, revolves around an unidentified narrator, a college professor, and a mediocre novelist. The narrator met his wife Utch, an orphaned survivor of WWII, in Vienna while doing research. They are a relatively happy couple; their family rounded out by two children. At a faculty party, they meet Severin Winter, a Viennese-born professor and coach of the college wrestling team, and his wife, Edith. The couple's interests (Edith is an aspiring fiction writer, and Severin has a commonality with Utch's upbringing in Austria) and resulting infatuations between the couples lead to after-dinner partner-swapping. At first, the swinging goes smoothly, but eventually, uneven feelings and obsessions throw the couples off track. The title, The 158-Pound Marriage, refers to the 158-pound weight class in wrestling, which Severin, the coach, feels is the most competitive. The book is small, only 176 pages, compared to Irving's later weighty tomes, like the 610 page The World According to Garp (1978) and The Cider House Rules (1985), which is 973 pages.
First line
My wife, Utchka (whose name I some time ago shortened to Utch), could teach patience to a time bomb.
First Edition Identification
The First edition of The 158-Pound Marriage was published on August 12, 1974, by Random House. "First Edition" is stated to copyright page, and number line begins with 2, per Random House's custom of identifying first edition (98765432). The American edition has a $5.95 printed on the front flap of the dust jacket. This is a scarce novel in first edition state, of which only around 2,600 were printed.
