The World According to Garp

A Novel

Author John Irving

Read by MacLeod Andrews and John Irving

Introduction by John Irving

Save

Add to Goodreads

A special 40th anniversary edition of the bestselling coming-of-age classic novel by John Irving, with a new introduction by the author.

"He is more than popular. He is a Populist, determined to keep alive the Dickensian tradition that revels in colorful set pieces...and teaches moral lessons."--The New York Times

The opening sentence of John Irving's breakout novel, The World According to Garp, signals the start of sexual violence, which becomes increasingly political. "Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater." Jenny is an unmarried nurse; she becomes a single mom and a feminist leader, beloved but polarizing. Her son, Garp, is less beloved, but no less polarizing.

From the tragicomic tone of its…

$36.50

November 13, 2018

Select a Retailer:

JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Mr. Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for his novel The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, Mr. Irving won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person. Internationally renowned, his books have been translated into more than thirty-five…