This is the life & times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields
- a feminist leader ahead of her times. It is also the life & death of a famous mother & her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes
- even of sexual assassinations. It is a novel rich with `lunacy & sorrow`; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both ribald & robust. It provides almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line: ” In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.”