John Irving was born John Wallace Blunt Jr. in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. By the time he was two years old, his parents had divorced and he never heard from his father again. (Hello Mr. Garp!) His mother eventually remarried and gave him his stepfather’s last name, Irving.

His first three books were received well by critics, but didn’t sell well. His fourth novel was his first popular success and is still one of my favorite novels. The World According to Garp (1978), is about the fatherless son of a radical feminist. The absence of a parent, especially the father, is a recurring theme in Irving’s work.

In 1981, his mother gave him a stack of letters that she had kept from him, letters that Irving’s father had written during World War II. Irving learned that his father was an Air Force pilot, and had been shot down over Burma. It was also the first time he realized that his father had wanted to keep in touch with him; he considered tracking his father down, but didn’t want to hurt his stepfather. Instead, he used some of his father’s stories in his book The Cider House Rules.

In One Person is his newest novel (due out in May) and is billed as “his most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany… an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself ‘worthwhile.’ “

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