The Cider House Rules is a departure from Irving's previous fiction in that it is a historical novel. Irving's best novels have always displayed an acute sense of history, and in The Hotel New Hampshire (1981) he follows the Berry family for about sixty years, but The Cider House Rules is clearly meant to evoke an earlier period in American history. It is set in New England in the period from the 1890s, when Wilbur Larch is in medical school in Boston, to the middle of the twentieth century, when Homer Wells reaches young manhood. Yet the central theme of the novel is abortion, and one of the contributions the novel makes is to remind readers that abortion — with its accompanying issues of legality, morality, and safety — is by no means a new concern. Dr. Wilbur Larch runs a combination orphanage and abortion clinic in...