Garp is harder to take, and more exhilarating, than one has any right to expect….

[In] The World According to Garp life is, more than anything else, intense … sharp-edged, and dangerous: the book is about the worst fears of its characters coming true….

[Violence] and death in Garp hurt deeply because the lives Irving creates for his characters are full to bursting with humor, purpose, lust, revenge, love, eccentricity and the will to keep promises. The struggle defined in Garp is not the hopeless struggle of men and women to beat the Reaper (as "We are all terminal cases" seems to imply), but the struggle of certain men and women to keep faith with each other.

One becomes attuned to what is lost when these people die. One understands just how their deaths will leave gaps—bleeding holes—in the lives of those who, for the time being...