John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire, he published his first book, Setting Free the Bears in 1968. He studied with Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, but, as his books continued to meet with great critical reception–and very little money, he decided to accept a position as an assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. His first real, categorical success came with the publication of The World According to Garp, which launched Irving, almost overnight, into international literary stardom.
His fifth book was Hotel New Hampshire, which follows the Berry family of New Hampshire–consisting of Win and Mary, and their five children. Win and Mary met as teenagers when they were both working as hotel staff for a summer, and, always bearing in mind the magic of that long-ago summer, Win comes up with the idea of turning an abandoned girls’ school into a hotel of his own, called The Hotel New Hampshire. From here, the novel follows each member of the Berry family through their troubled, often tragic, and very, very human lives. Irving doesn’t do anything gratuitously in this work–he uses the Berry family as a vehicle to discuss the horrors of the world that we often take for granted. By showing their effects on a realistic, sympathetic, and loving family, we can really begin to think about the world in which they (and we) live, and the toll it takes on each and every one of them (and us).
However, in 2008, a staff member at Plymouth High School in New Hampshire decided that Hotel New Hampshire was inappropriate reading matter for the students there, and lodged a complaint with the school’s library to have the book removed. An internal review resulted in a vote of overwhelming support for the book, and it remained. Following the vote, the school’s librarian, Pam Harland, wrote a letter to Irving’s literary agent about the event, which resulted in a personal letter to Harland from Irving, discussing not only his work, but why it is so important to read about the tough stuff, to support those who do, and to stand tall in the face of those who would try and tell you otherwise. Thanks to our friends at Letters of Note, we have Irving’s letter to share with you, so I’ll let him take over:
John Irving
P.O. BOX 757
DORSET, VERMONT 05251Pam Harland, Librarian
Plymouth Regional High School
86 Old Ward Bridge Rd.
Plymouth, NH 03264-1299November 4, 2008
Dear Ms. Harland:
My wife and agent showed me your letter, and I commend your efforts to keep “The Hotel New Hampshire” available to young readers at the Plymouth Regional High School Library. Thank you! Thank you, too, for contacting me; it’s often the only way I hear about efforts to ban my books. To my knowledge, only three of my novels have been successfully banned—”The World According to Garp,” “The Cider House Rules,” and “A Prayer for Owen Meany.” (All for different reasons.) I recently spoke at a school library in Massachusetts during Banned Books Week, and I will speak this coming Sat., Nov. 8, at a public lecture for the Nashville Public Library in Tennessee—once again on the subject of banned books.
I enclose five other books of mine, signed to the Plymouth Regional High School Library. I feel they are in good hands!
I know that you already know this, because you read my novels, but in my stories there is often a young person at risk, or taken advantage of; many of my stories are about how innocence fares in the adult world. I take the side of young people, but I am also a realist; it is especially offensive to me when an uptight adult suggests that my stories are “inappropriate” for young readers. I imagine, when I write, that I am writing for young readers—not for uptight adults.
I thank you for having the courage to stand up for a novel that is utterly sympathetic to young people. As you know, the last so-called Hotel New Hampshire (at the end of the novel) is, in reality, a rape-crisis center, a place to counsel victims—most of whom are young. I wonder if the staff member who found my novel offensive actually read that far, or if the incest issue—or the sexual explicitness, of the four-letter words in the dialogue—was sufficient to impede their progress. (Real readers finish books, and then judge them; most people who propose banning a book haven’t finished it. In fact, no one who actually banned Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” even read it.)
With my heartfelt best wishes,
(Signed, ‘John Irving’)
