The World According to Garp

Format:	Paperback 608 pages

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Synopsis

This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields - a feminist leader ahead of her times. It is also the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes - even of sexual assassinations. It is a novel rich with 'lunacy and sorrow'; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both ribald and robust. It provides almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line: "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

Book details

Published
01/07/1986

Publisher
Black Swan

ISBN
9780552992053

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UK Kirkus review

Every 10 years or so an American novel strikes a chord with the reading public and seems to define the age. Catch 22 was one such for the 1960s, and for the 1970s this novel by John Irving was another. Brilliant, picaresque and Dickensian, it challenges the bounds of fact and fiction digressing into feminism, sexuality and violence with stunning verve, and its frequent sentimentality cannot obscure either the comedy or the ultimate tragedy. First published in 1978. (Kirkus UK)

About the author

John Irving

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times - winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for the short story 'Interior Space'. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules - a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent novel is Last Night in Twisted River.