John Irving returns to the themes that established him as one of our most admired and beloved authors in this absorbing novel of fate and memory. As we grow oldermost of all, in what we remember and what we dreamwe live in the past. Sometimes, we live more vividly in the past than in the present. As an older man, Juan Diego will take a trip to the Philippines, but what travels with him are his dreams and memories; he is most alive in his childhood and early adolescence in Mexico. zAn aura of fate had marked him,y John Irving writes, of Juan Diego. zThe chain of events, the links in our liveswhat leads us where were going, the courses we follow to our ends, what we dont see coming, and what we doall this can be mysterious, or simply unseen, or even obviously Avenue of Mysteries is the story of what happens to Juan Diego in the Philippines, where what happened to him in the pastin Mexicocollides with his future.