The World According To Garp

"Absolutely extraordinary...a roller-coaster ride that leaves one breathless, exhausted, elated and tearful" (Los Angeles Times)

"A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and heartbreaking. You know it is true. It is also terrific" (The Washington Post)

"Like all great works of art, Irving's novel seems always to have been there, a diamond sleeping in the dark, chipped out at last for our enrichment and delight...As approachable as it is brilliant, Garp pulses with vital energy" (Cosmopolitan)

"Like all extraordinary books, The World According to Garp defies synopsis" (Chicago Sun Times)

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."