A Son of the Circus

infobox Book |
name = A Son of the Circus
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First Edition Cover
author = John Irving
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Random House
release_date = August 1994
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 640 p. (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-679-43496-8 (hardback edition)
preceded_by = The World According to Garp
followed_by = A Widow for One Year

"A Son of the Circus" is a novel by John Irving written and/or published in 1994.

Though the setting is Mumbay (Bombay) India and though the book describes the "Blue Nile" circus in details the novel has many other story lines, of which the most important is the growing human understanding in the main character, Farrokh Daruwalla. The novel includes a crime-story that links the other plotlines:

A series of murders take place in Bombay and nearby places. When this affects an upper-class club and Daruwalla's stepson is threatened, the killings are investigated by a sympathetic criminal inspector who long ago married a girl who had witnessed one of the murders.

Another story line concerns twin brothers who do not know each other at first. One is a famous movie actor starring in the Inspector Dhar series, which are scripted by none other than Dr. Daruwalla. The other is a Jesuit who causes all sorts of confusion when he arrives and gets on everyone's nerves. The twins meet when the Jesuit apprentice leaves his religious ambitions behind.

References

An [http://www.salon.com/march97/interview2970303.html interview] where Irving tells about how he considers the characters of his novels, including "A Son of the Circus", to be a product not of imagination but of keen observations.