Absolutely extraordinary...a roller-coaster ride that leaves one breathless, exhausted, elated and tearful * LA TIMES *
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 *
The most powerful and profound novel about women written by a man in our generation .... Like all extraordinary books, Garp defies synopsis ... a marvellous, important, permanent novel by a serious artist of remarkable powers * CHICAGO TIMES *
A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and heartbreaking. You know it is true. It is also terrific * WASHINGTON POST *
Iconic ... The World According to Garp is a huge narrative full of complex emotional rollercoasters typical of a writer's life ... fascinatingly unique * NEW YORK TIMES *
A social tragi-comedy of such velocity that it reads rather like a domestic sequel to Catch-22 * OBSERVER *
A brilliant panoply of current attitudes toward sex, marriage and parenthood, the feminist movement and - above all - the concept of delineated sexual roles... Irving's characters will stay alive for years to come * CHICAGO TRIBUNE *
Nothing in contemporary fiction matches it ... Irving's blend of gravity and play is unique, audacious, almost blasphemous ... Brilliant, funny, and consistently wise; a work of vast talent * NEW REPUBLIC *
American fiction dotes on its plucky rebel kids - those clear-eyed but big-hearted outsiders and vagabonds who from Twain to Salinger, and far beyond, light out for the territory of a hard-won liberty. No one, over three decades, has worked this seam with more zest and glee than John Irving...his quirkily compassionate individualism reliably stands up for the upstart and the outcast * INDEPENDENT *
