Editing The World According to Garp (section)

== Background ==
John Irving's mother, Frances Winslow, had not been married at the time of his conception,<ref>{{cite web
| url        = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/aug/13/fiction.johnirving
| quote      = His parents had married six months before his birth
| title      = Grappling with life
| author     = Nicholas Wroe
| work       = The Observer
| date       = 13 August 2005
| access-date = 5 November 2009
}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite web
| url        = https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/the-world-according-to-john-irving-zkshs0xthxs?region=global
| title      = The world according to John Irving
| access-date = 4 November 2009
| date       = 18 October 2009
| work       = The Times
| author     = Ariel Leve
}}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

In 1981, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine quoted the novelist's mother as saying "There are parts of ''Garp'' that are too explicit for me."<ref>{{cite magazine
| url        = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C954955-9%2C00.html
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121105201947/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954955-9,00.html
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = 5 November 2012
| title      = Life into Art: Novelist John Irving
| date       = 31 August 1981
| access-date = 4 November 2009
| author     = R.Z. Sheppard
| magazine       = Time
}}</ref>