The World According to Garp
by John Irving
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At a glance:
- Author: John Irving
- First Published: 1978
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Tragicomedy
- Setting: New Hampshire and Massachusetts
- Characters: T. S. Garp, Jenny Fields, Helen Holm Garp, Duncan, Walt, Jenny, Cushman Percy, Bainbridge Percy, Michael Milton, Ellen James
- Genres: Long fiction, Picaresque fiction, Tragedy, Tragicomedy, Saga, Novel
- Subjects: 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Mothers, Parents and children, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Gender roles, Authors or writers, New York City, 1940's, Prostitution or prostitutes, New Hampshire, Rape, Violence, Feminism, Lesbianism or lesbians, Adultery, Death or dying, Wit or humor, Boston, Disabilities or physically challenged persons, Nursing or nurses, Coaching or coaches, Wounds or injuries, Private schools, Vienna, Wrestling, Sympathy, Activism
- Locales: Europe, United States, Vienna, Austria, North America, Austria, New York, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Dog's Head Harbor, New Hampshire
The Story:
Jenny Fields is the only daughter of a New England shoe manufacturer and lives in her family’s enormous house in Dog’s Head Harbor, New Hampshire. After a few years, Jenny leaves the expensive private school her parents had selected for her and instead enrolls in nursing school. Attractive and self-assured, she has definite opinions about lust and sex; she is opposed to lust and abstains from sex. She is young, attractive, and self-assured, so friends and family assume she is sexually active.
Jenny had never had sex until one night at work at a hospital...
(The entire page is 2189 words.)
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