SOURCE: Horowitz, Joy. “The Gospel according to Garp.” Los Angeles Times (22 April 1979): section 7, pp. 2-3.

In the following review, Horowitz discusses the critical and popular reaction to The World according to Garp.

My father the psychologist will flip out when he reads this, but it's true. I've joined a cult. It's not that I've disowned my family, you understand. But I've joined another highly enlightened one—The Family of Garp.

Yes, I'm a Garpist. I've become a missionary trying to spread the word of Garp, as in John Irving's astounding novel, The World According to Garp, one of the most passionate and outrageous novels I've ever read.

Yes, I believe in Garp—just as the book's soft-cover promotion people, who have spent ＄200,000 spreading the gospel, would like to hear. Normally, I'd cringe at the thought of marketing a novel like so much soap. But in the case of...