This is a whopping-long novel at 820 pages, which seems to justify its five sections and thirty-nine chapters—something only a bestseller could get away with. Regardless, the first section is “The North Sea,” and the first chapter is ‘In the Care of Churchgoers and Old Girls.”

Jack Burns was an exceptional four-year-old, with advanced vocabulary, memory retention, and understanding of linear time. His mother considered him inattentive and dreamy. The first memory he has of holding his mother’s hand, was the fall of 1969 in Toronto after his mother had told him he would be one of the first boys to be admitted to St. Hilda’s school for girls. Awash in a sea of girls in knee-highs and gray and maroon uniforms, he had instinctively reached for her hand.

This is a great image, and something I’d be intimidated by too!

After a page break on 5, Alice, Jack’s mother, decided that she would work her way around the North Sea cities where Jack’s father was most likely hiding from his them—his “abandoned responsibilities.” Alice was a tattoo artist like her father, and was planning to work at various shops based on his reputation.

Seeking William Burns, Jack’s father, turns out to be the main drive of the novel. Alice claims it’ll be good for Jack, but it seems to be mainly a goal of her own. Jack is usually submissively following her through the various church and tattoo communities.

Another break on page 6 introduces Jack’s father as William, an organ player in a parish church in Edinburgh, where Alice had been a choir girl. After a few pages of exposition on Alice’s father, the tattoo artist that had “slept in the needles” when times were tough (slept in that tattoo shop, or when a tattoo artist dies in his shop), gives William Burns his first tattoo.

Rightly, Aberdeen Bill, Alice’s father, states that William will be an ink collector. As Alice travels the world looking for him, she only needs to find the tattoo talent in each city to find his trail. William is driven to bigger and better church organs, as well as collecting tattoos, a bizarre combination of addictions.

Alice tells Jack that if they don’t find his father by the time Jack starts school next year, they’ll forget all about him, a concept surprising and foreign to a boy who had never known his father. William and Alice were separated in their choirgirl and organ player roles after William transfered to Old St. Pauls, a Scottish Episcopal Church, and home to an all-male choir. Around this time, Alice realized she wasn’t the only one in love with William, but she was the only one that had gotten pregnant. William was eventually “whisked away to Nova Scotia” by both his parents and his church.

Surprisingly, the parishioners of Old St. Pauls took up a collection for Alice to find William. But by this point she was already showing and was put up in a parish house to await her delivery. Jack Burns was a difficult birth, eventually arriving through C-Section in Halifax, Nova Scotia—William was still hiding somewhere in Toronto. After Jack’s birth, Alice apprenticed with Charlie Snow, a knowledgeable and locally famous tattoo artist. Sailor Jerry apprenticed with her.

I recognize the name of Sailor Jerry, but I don’t know if any of these other tattoo artists are real as well. It’s interesting hearing John Irving talk about the tattoo profession, as he obviously did a bit of research. It’s only half-way believable, however. Having gotten into tattooing myself, a love of art and the different levels of finesse are rarely explored, and this detracts from Alice being a real person for me. She seems to be a receptacle of tattoo jargon without the emotional connection to her craft.

William had been hired at St. Hilda’s to train the choir girls, eventually becoming the principal organist. His success there was short-lived after impregnating one of the girls. Once Alice had arrived, Jack in tow, she was quickly taken under the wing of the Old Girls, the alumni associated of St. Hilda’s. It was probably with their help that Jack was to be enrolled there. William Burns is already gone, however, rumored to be back in Europe.

William is so consistently absent in the first 50 pages of his novel that I’m already exhausted of chasing him.

The Chinaman, a non-Chinese tattoo artist, hired Alice in 1965, instantly realizing she was the best tattoo artist in Toronto. Around the same time, Mrs. Wicksteed, and Old Girl and landlord of Alice and Jack’s “rent-free” rooms, decided that Alice’s Scottish accent was more socially damaging than her involvement in the tattoo arts. Mrs. Wicksteed hired Mrs. Wurtz who distained Alice but quickly broke her of her Scottish burr. Chapter one ends on page 16.

Chapter two, “Saved by the Littlest Soldier,” begins by explaining a bit of Alice’s father, Aberdeen Bill. He had gotten his start tattooing circus people with the soot from oil lamps, and Alice capitalizes on his renown: “There wasn’t a tattooer worth his needles in those North Sea ports who hadn’t heard of Aberdeen Bill” (17). Alice and Jack traveled to Copenhagen first, Tattoo Ole hiring her on the spot. It was him that gave Alice her tattoo name: Daughter Alice, because of her relation to Aberdeen Bill.

Jack liked Ladies’ Man Lars, Tattoo Ole’s apprentice. Alice had reservations about letting Jack see her work, rarely letting him practice with her tattoo gun on fruit or fish. But Ladies’ Man Lars let Jack practice on him, a rather risky endeavor for a four-year-old. It’s possible that Lars had a crush on Alice in order to sacrifice his ankles to Jack.

Ladies’ Man Lars and Tattoo Ole both remember William Burns, more specifically, they remember his tattoos. He has pieces by Handel and Bach, church hymns, and Christmas music. Alice recognizes the work of her friends back in Toronto just based on the tattoo descriptions. Alice asks the men what William’s job was, and they answer that he was a sort of apprentice at Kastelskirken, and a sort of ladies’ man. They heard he had moved on to Stockholm.

William has acquired so many different choir girl lovers that I’m confused as to Alice’s motivation to keep trailing him. What makes her think that she’s different from all the others?

Alice and Jack check out the citadel church of an old fort, the Katelskirken, in search of information on William. He had mastered several Bach sonatas, as well as seducing a young military man’s wife, before being asked to leave. As Alice questions the chief organist, Jack wanders around the medieval fortification, eventually inspecting the frozen moat. The ice, however, isn’t strong enough to hold him and he tumbles in. After a sizable commotion, Jack is pulled out. Alice promptly slaps him amidst her tears.

The chapter’s title, “The Littlest Soldier,” is based on Jack’s rescuer, someone hardly bigger than Jack himself. Alice later rewards the young man with sex, which Jack casually walks in on. After the sex scene it becomes apparent that Alice is paying her way with tattoos and sex, leaving a trail of ambiguous relationships not unlike William Burns himself.

During the Christmas holiday, Alice and Jack prepare to follow William to Stockholm, Alice tattooing like mad to save money for their trip. Before leaving, Alice tattoos a broken heart on Ladies’ Man Lars, signing it “Daughter Alice.”

Chapter three, “Rescued by a Swedish Accountant,” begins with Alice and Jack arriving in Stockholm in January of 1970. They arrive at the Helvig Eleonora, a beautifully grand Lutheran church, and hear about the three different choir girls William had seduced. William had already gone underground in Stockholm, almost as underground as Doc Forest, the city’s best tattoo artist. Alice gave tattoos in their hotel room until she was discovered by the management—tattoos were barely legal at the time. One morning, the accountant Torsten Lindberg recognizes Alice and Jack as kindred spirits. Lindberg becomes their first lead in finding Doc Forest as he has a tattoo by him, as well as Tattoo Ole and many others. Lindberg also sets Jack up with ice skating lessons from his wife.

Alice gathers her clientele through an ambiguous proposition in the hotel lobby. The tattoo/sex comparison is pretty rampant.

As Jack learns to skate with Agneta Lindberg’s instruction, Alice tattoos a Rose of Jericho on Torsten’s shoulder blade. Alice is finally introduced to Doc Forest who regrettably can’t hire her—but he does remember William Burns. Doc thinks William might have gone to Oslo, a place where tattoos are just as taboo as Stockholm. As they aren’t exactly welcome at their hotel anymore, Alice and Jack set sail for Oslo.

Upon a hardy Norwegian handshake and arriving in a small, airless hotel room in Oslo, Jack starts to cry:

“I don’t care if we find him! I hope we don’t find him!”

“If we find him, you’ll care—it’ll mean something.”

But Jack is already anticipating his father’s second rejection, they are already his “abandoned responsibilities.” Alice quiets him down to have dinner. In the hotel restaurant, a couple walks in, obviously head over heels for each other. Confused by his mother’s refusal to ask the couple if they want a tattoo, Jack walks over and asks himself. The girl seems interested, but Alice hadn’t followed Jack to the table, instead crying at her own. After a moment, she takes Jack’s hand and walks away. Chapter three ends on page 50.

This makes me wonder if the man is William Burns himself, but after traveling across Scandinavia looking for him I would think Alice would confront him. Thus the man’s identity is left anonymous. I would wonder what the last 750 pages would cover if Alice finds William in the first 50 pages!

Until I Find You is a rather intimidating book: it’s long, mostly exposition, and a little tough to follow. An abandoned pregnant tattoo artist searching the world for her bastard’s father is a novel concept (no pun intended), but it feels as if Irving might be trying a little too hard to find a topic that hasn’t been done. Alice doesn’t feel like a real character to me since her emotions are so veiled—why does she care where William is? Does she tattoo because it’s what her father did? When will she realize that dragging a toddler around the world isn’t exactly good parenting? The first 50 pages don’t answer any of these questions.