John Irving’s The World According to Garp (1978)—the story of an only-somewhat-John-Irving-like novelist—puts it, “Garp always said that the question he most hated to be asked, about his work, was how much of it was ‘true’—how much of it was based on ‘personal experience.’ ... Usually, with great patience and restraint, Garp would say that the autobiographical basis—if there even was one—was the least interesting level on which to read a novel.”31
