There are some authors that you just know are going to make a social statement in whatever they write. This is especially true of John Irving, so I had a tough time deciding which of his books to recommend. A Prayer for Owen Meany? Widow for One Year? Setting Free the Bears? The World According to Garp? I finally settled on The Cider House Rules because it is the most blatant social statement (and ironically, one that not many writers will risk) and also because there is additional reading material to recommend with it.
The Cider House Rules takes a unique approach to the subject of abortion and is filled with all the strange humor and heartwrenching tragedy that makes a John Irving novel unique. Years later, John Irving wrote My Movie Business, a memoir about the adaptation of the book into film. The latter book is an excursion into the mind of a talented, but also very deliberate, author–a look into his thoughts about writing and about movies and most interestingly, about this very controversial subject. Together, the books present a snapshot of one man’s perspective in two different forms.