John Irving

b. Exeter, N.H., Mar. 2, 1942, is an author whose sprawling fourth novel, The World According to Garp (1978; film, 1982), earned him a huge following and a National Book Award nomination. The story of an eccentric feminist and her writer son, it displays the same delight in language and narrative exuberance that characterized his previous novels, Setting Free the Bears (1968), The Water Method Man (1972) and The 158-Pound Marriage (1974). The Hotel New Hampshire (1981; film, 1984) is, like Garp, a family saga. The Cider House Rules (1985) is ranked by many as Irving's best novel. A Prayer for Owen Meany was published in 1989. [Read more]

The Cider House Rules
Bantam Books, 1985 (PhP 80.00)
The visited-upon characters in "The Cider House Rules" are Wilbur Larch, an abortionist-obstetrician addicted to ether; Homer Wells, an unadoptable orphan; an odd couple of nurses at an orphanage in St. Clouds's, Maine; a wealthy family of apple farmers and a band of migrant pickers. Close readers of "The Cider House Rules" will notice that Irving studied the real world closely to inform the book with authenticity. His grim "history" of St. Cloud's doesn't focus only on the more realistic sadness and tragedy of the characters' condition. Iriving breaks the rules by allowing his characters' uniquely ironic and humorous routines and responses to endear them to us, which eventually forces us to see ourselves in a new way. For almost every main character there is at least a moment of shared understanding, of connection, of love.