John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, on March 2, 1942. Although Irving has said that The World According to Garp is not autobiographical, there are many similarities between the novelist and the title character. Irving, like Garp, has never met his biological father. (However, Irving's mother gave him some letters his father had written during World War II and he used his father's experiences for a character in The Cider House Rules. "Being a novelist," Irving once said, "is never throwing anything away.") Irving also grew up at a prep school, Exeter Academy, where his stepfather taught Russian history. He eventually attended the school himself and there acquired his lifelong interests of wrestling and writing. He was an average student, but he later discovered that one of the reasons he struggled was because he was dyslexic.

Irving was disenchanted during his brief time as a student...