John Irving became a wrestler and a writer at the same time. And he talks in this memoir about both, his career as a halfway decent wrestler and then a respected coach and his years of learning who to write and then as a teacher of a creative writing course. He also speaks about his coaches, his fellow writers and his sons, with tons of affection for all of them. John Irving has a reputation for writing long and complicated novels. This memoir is the opposite. It is simple, short and joyful. A very touching memoir.
“In the semifinals, I also disqualified a heavyweight for deliberately throwing his opponent on top of the scorer’s table; I had twice warned and penalized this wrestler for continuing to wrestle off the mat – after the whistle blew. I’d even asked his coach if the heavyweight in question was deaf.
‘No, he’s just a little stupid,’ his coach replied.
When I disqualified the heavyweight, his parents came out of the stands and confronted me in the middle of the mat. I had no trouble recognizing who they were – they didn’t have to introduce themselves. At a glance, I could see they’d swum forth from the same gene pool for enormity that had spawned their son.”
Listened to as an audiobook