Book description
John Irving's memoir begins with his account of the distinguished
career and medical writings of the novelist's grandfather Dr Frederick
C. Irving, a renowned obstetrician and gynaecologist, and includes Mr
Irving's incisive history of abortion politics in the United States.
But My Movie Business focuses primarily on the thirteen years John
Irving spent adapting his novel The Cider House Rules for the screen -
for four different directors.
Mr Irving also writes about the failed effort to make his first
novel, Setting Free the Bears, into a movie, about two of the films
that were made from his novels (but not from his screenplays), The
World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire; about his slow
progress at shepherding his screenplay of A Son of the Circus into production.
Not least, and in addition to its qualities as a memoir - anecdotal,
comic, affectionate and candid - My Movie Business is an insightful
essay on the essential differences between writing a novel and writing
a screenplay.
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he
once admitted that he was a 'grim' child. Although he excelled in
English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to
write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named
John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received
encouragement. 'It was so simple,' he remembers. 'Yount was the first
person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be
vaguely unsatisfying.'
In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in
Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel,
Setting Free the Bears, about a plot to release all the animals from
the Vienna Zoo, was followed by The Water-Method Man, a comic tale of
a man with a urinary complaint, and The 158-Pound Marriage, which
exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved
international recognition with The World According to Garp, which he
hoped would 'cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few
softer hearts'.
The Hotel New Hampshire is a startlingly original family saga, and
The Cider House Rules is the story of Doctor Wilbur Larch - saint,
obstetrician, founder of an orphanage, ether addict and abortionist -
and of his favourite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. A
Prayer for Owen Meany features the most unforgettable character Irving
has yet created. A Son of the Circus is an extraordinary evocation of
modern day India. He is also the author of the international
bestsellers A Widow for One Year, The Fourth Hand and Until I Find
You.
A collection of John Irving's shorter writing, Trying to Save Piggy
Sneed, was published in 1993. Irving has also written the screenplays
for The Cider House Rules and A Son of the Circus, and wrote about his
experiences in the world of movies in his memoir My Movie Business.
Irving has had a life-long passion for wrestling, and he plays a
wrestling referee in the film of The World According to Garp. In his
memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, John Irving writes about his life as
a wrestler, a novelist and as a wrestling coach. He now writes
full-time, has three children and lives in Vermont and Toronto.
