The World According to Garp

World According to Garp, The,
novel by John Irving, published in 1978.

Jenny Fields, a dedicated New England heiress, drops out of Wellesley College to nurse war-shattered soldiers in a Boston hospital during World War II. There she quixotically decides to have a child and therefore gives herself to a dying, brain-damaged airplane gunner who can only shout the meaningless exclamation, “Garp.” Therefore she calls their child T.S. (for Technical Sergeant) Garp. In time he goes to a New England preparatory school, where she serves as a nurse and writes the book A Sexual Suspect, a statement on women's sensibilities and rights. Garp too becomes an author, matures to marry a bookish woman, Helen, and fathers two children, Duncan and Walt, while his mother becomes a leader of the women's rights movement. In an auto accident, while Garp is driving, Walt is killed, Duncan loses an eye, and Helen is severely injured. With his remaining family...

[The entire page is 270 words long]

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