Artistic license allows Mr. Champagne to conflate the auto accident described in the first verse of "A Day in the Life" with not only the death of Lennon's mother, Julia, who was run over while crossing the street, but also with the consolation that Mr. McCartney offered to Lennon's older son, Julian, upon his parents' breakup, in "Hey Jude".
There were many close matches in the early rounds of the Rosenblum Knockout Team Championship, and one of them, in the first round, was decided by a curious accident, described in the book.
Some of the 27 survivors of the accident described being beaten by smugglers in an attempt to load more migrants on to the boat.
The majority of the accidents described occurred in the USA, while 26 occurred elsewhere: Canada (8), Mexico (5), Panama (1), China (1), Japan (1), Malaysia (1), Indonesia (Java) (1), Europe (8): of which Spain (1), Belgium (1), UK (3), Italy (1), Romania (1), unknown (1).
Mr. Irving has always had a taste for grotesque deaths and grisly accidents described in grand Guignolesque detail, and "Twisted River" is no exception.
Witness reports of the opening accident describe his appearance in confusing, varying detail – "one says he was short, had gold teeth, and was lame in his right foot.
Besides the 1955 novel, the accident has been described in more than a dozen fictional and non-fictional accounts related to the U.S. nuclear weapons program, including as a short story in a 1960s children's academic reading program.
In an accident described as "eerily similar to Adenhart's", the school's star pitcher and girlfriend were both killed in a 2012 auto accident.
