Love John Irving! This is a short but satisfying memoir written with his usual sweetness.

I really like some of John Irving's novels, so it was a treat to read this short memoir.
I love his voice! I've read a lot of his stories about wrestling; some of this material had been
published before. Nevertheless, this was a pleasure to read!

Portions of this memoir are familiar, having appeared in a "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed," a prior collection in similar form. Irving's unique voice comes through clearly as he uses humor and pathos in this account of his wrestling life and his writing life.

As the younger sister of a gifted wrestler, I was forced to attend his meets as a young girl. I rarely watched, preferring instead to play with friends. Years later (small world), I taught the grandson of wrestling great, Dan Gable. I’ve never cared for wrestling and was disappointed so much of this book focused on the sport, rather than on Irving’s life.

In his “Author’s Notes,” Irving says his original draft contained just 10 pages about wrestling, but that his second wife and a New Yorker writer encouraged him to beef up the wrestling. I wish he’d stuck to his guns.

I loved learned about his early days at Exeter, his life as a Townie and as a faculty member’s son, and his diagnosis of dyslexia. Irving shared that in the late 50’s and early 60’s this was considered a psychological problem. The fact that he developed a love for reading and became a writer is miraculous. More, more, more about that! Less, less, less about weight classes and wrestling matches.

Irving clearly formed deep and long-lasting relationships in the classroom, in college, and in the wrestling world. His high school wrestling coach is portrayed as a larger-than-life, shoot-from-the-hip, wonderful man who tells a young Irving: “Talent is overrated. That you’re not very talented needn’t be the end of it.” Irving follows with a great throwaway line: “I began to take my lack of talent seriously.”

If you’ve never read A Prayer for Owen Meany, please do. As for me, I plan to read more of Irving’s novels.

Another good book by John Irving. Just a tad too much wrestling for my taste.

It would've been a lot more accurate--and more honest--to have subtitled this one, "A Memoir of Wrestling." (And actually I think I might've preferred reading Mentors.) ;)

Really though, the wrestling stuff was the only thing that had any grit to it. Everything else, like the parts addressing his writing career--what there were of those--seemed rather superficial (with a liberal sprinkling of name-dropping throughout). And that list of Writers He Admired early on--eek! (although at least he did have the decency to dislike Proust, James and Conrad).

I must admit I attended several writing classes/workshops over the years (and never got a damned thing out of any of them). But his defense of them seemed to be decidedly self-serving: that they're basically there to help support the non-best-selling writer to pursue his real interest (which is to get some more stuff written on the side). And okay, maybe every once in a while he will manage to encourage one or two people along the way...which I have to say is an attitude all too in tune with the "lunacy" of academia he touches upon (no wonder I never got very much out of writing classes).

PS Boy, that one kid of his must've been a veritable babe-magnet!

While this short autobiography may not be to everyone's taste (it's really not much to my taste, though I now 150% more about high school and college wrestling than I did before I picked this up), it is interesting for the insight it gives to fans of Irving into one of his major passions. This is really a wrestling memoir and, as you'd expect from Irving, it has lots of interesting anecdotes, memorable people and some light literary touches. Per my personal interests, I appreciated the few pages devoted to literary matters more than the rest of it (his days learning under Vonnegut at the Iowa Writers Workshop, his mentorship under Robertson Davies, his appreciation for 19th-century novelists). Overall, I'm not sure this is really coherent (in the sense that it has a central plan that Irving followed; it seems a little scattered to me, but I'll see what I think when I read it again in Irving's collection _Trying to Save Piggy Sneed_), but it's short and informative and does what an autobiography should: gives a glimpse into someone else's life and times.

It is quite interesting to read this book right after 'The World According to Garp' - how autobiographical and non-autobiographical it could be in the same time. Also if you are interested in the specifics of wrestling (me, personally - not so much) this is definitely your book! But one could find there some interesting details about development of a young writer or, for example, Irving's impressions of Vienna. Generally speaking, the autobiographies are not my favorite cup of tea, but this one is a decent representative of the genre.

This is a quick read but, at least from his perspective, gives a glimpse into the author’s life and what makes him tick. It should be interesting reading for anyone with goals left in life and for anyone who is a fan.

This is not your routine memoir. It focuses very much on Irving's wrestling career and was published in the mid to late 1990's. We don't get much insight into his writing process but we do get much insight into his wrestling career and also some information regarding his sons' wrestling careers. I truly enjoy his novels but found this book mundane, although interesting enough to finish. Perhaps an updated version would be more relevant.

I enjoyed this as I reconnected with the authors work after a couple of decades. Not interested at all in wrestling but Mr.Irvings ability to create interesting characters is enriched as he talks about real life friends, family and mentors.

To fully understand this review, I must stress that I do not care about wrestling even a little bit. However, John Irving pulled me into his memoir immediately, which I had hoped would be mostly about other authors who inspired him but was mostly about wrestling, and he did not release me until the last page. Everything I have ever read by Irving has had the same effect. He will forever be one of my favorite authors partly because of his humility even though I consider him to be a masterful writer.