A Prayer for Owen Meany is an examination of faith and fate set in an outlandish narrative. The Owen of the title has a high-pitched child's voice set in a childlike physique; he disdains the Catholic Church for refusing to believe in his virgin birth or in his being God's instrument; and he is obsessed with practising basketball shots with his best friend John.
Through John's narration, splicing past and present, we know that Owen dies exactly per his dream and in the course of being God's instrument, though tantalisingly - and necessarily, if there aren't to be plot spoilers halfway through the book - the dream doesn't provide the full-blown details of how his death comes about.
And we learn that in the fact of Owen's death - the fact of its occurring much as Owen has dreamt - the previously non-religious John turns to religion and offers up an unrelenting prayer for God to return Owen Meany to him.
The story of faith is made more palatable by the fact that it is intertwined with subsequent anti-war sentiment. Thus, Owen's role as instrument of God doesn't include lynching non-Whites, an interpretation of God's will that we are all too familiar with. No, Owen must save Vietnamese children (as well as John) from certain death at the hands of a man grieving for the loss of his brother during the Vietnam war, and brandishing a gun to help him quell his anger towards the "dinks".
Thus, Owen Meany the physically stunted virgin baby who must do God's will is transformed into a hero. His best friend owes his life to Owen - if not to his bravery, then at least to his acceptance and embracing of his own fate - and is disgusted with the American foreign policy that led to the war that forged Owen's fate. So much so, that John decamps to Canada and lives the rest of his life praying to God to return Owen Meany, a life of silent prayer that is punctuated only by his teaching English to schoolgirls.
Out of crazy and improbable scenarios are born the heroes of our time: that's the easiest thing to come to terms with in this novel, the glib summary that rolls off the tongue. More difficult to process is our thinking on issues of faith and fate, with a good measure of social justice thrown in. Would we be joining John in his prayers if Owen had died for a cause we despise? Would Owen have faced his fate with such conviction and enthusiasm if that fate had been to facilitate rather than prevent the Vietnamese childrens' death? Are we really ready to confront our "fate"? Do we even believe in "fate"?
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