John
Irving's memoir begins with his account of the distinguished career and medical
writings of the novelists's grandfather Dr. Frederick C. Irving, a renowned obstetrician
and gynecologist, and includes Mr. Irving's incisive history of abortion politics
in the United States. But My Movie Business focuses primarily on the thirteen
years John Irving spent adapting his novel The Cider House Rules for the
screen - for four different directors.
Mr. Irving also writes about the
failed effort to make his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, into a movie;
about two of the films that were made from his novels (but not from his screenplays),
The World Accoudning to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire; about
his slow progress at shepherding his screenplay of A Son of the Circus
into production.
Not least, and in addition to its qualities as a memoir
- anecdotal, comic, affectionate, and candid - My Movie Business is an
insightful essay on the essential differences between writing a novel and writing
a screenplay.
