John Irving's mother, Frances Winslow, had not been married at the time of his conception,[6] and Irving never met his biological father. As a child, he was not told anything about his father, and he told his mother that unless she gave him some information about his biological father, in his writing he would invent the father and the circumstances of how she got pregnant. Winslow would reply "Go ahead, dear."[7]
In 1981, Time magazine quoted the novelist's mother as saying "There are parts of Garp that are too explicit for me."[8]
