A Prayer for Owen Meany was published by William Morrow in 1989, and it became Irving’s most emotionally powerful novel — a book that generates genuine religious awe in readers who may not themselves be religious. Owen Meany is a tiny, strange boy whose voice (rendered in CAPITAL LETTERS throughout) is damaged, whose body is unnaturally small, and whose certainty that God has a purpose for him — a purpose that involves his own death — drives the narrative toward a climax that is both inevitable and shattering.
The novel is narrated by John Wheelwright, Owen’s best friend, from the vantage of 1987 Toronto (where he has fled to escape the America of Reagan and the Vietnam War). John’s narrative moves between the 1950s and 1960s of their New Hampshire childhood and the present-day anger of his Canadian exile, with Owen at the center of both timelines — the miraculous child who grows into the martyred young man.
Irving’s engagement with Christianity is genuine and complex. Owen is not merely a Christ figure (though he is that); he is a person who lives inside a belief system with absolute commitment, and whose faith produces actions that the faithless cannot explain. The novel does not argue for Christianity; it demonstrates what faith looks like when it is real — and the demonstration is more powerful than any argument.
Collecting A Prayer for Owen Meany
First edition (William Morrow, New York, 1989): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in fine jacket: $60–$150
- Signed first edition: $150–$400
- Reading copy without jacket: $8–$20