The World According to Bensenhaver by TS Garp

Title: The World According to Bensenhaver

Author: T S Garp

Publisher: Edited by John Wolf

Source book: The World According to Garp by John Irving

T S Garp was named after a brain damaged Technical Sergeant who could only say “garp”. The Sergeant was raped by Garp’s mother in order to have a child without the bother of a relationship, but she didn’t  know his name: hence the initials T S. 

Garp grows up to become a wrestling fan, and an author. His first book is Procrastination, about WWII Vienna. The characters in Garp seem drawn to Vienna. The second book is Second Wind of the Cuckold which he writes while he and his wife (daughter of his wrestling coach) are both having affairs. It is not a success. 

Garp’s third book is a lurid and tragic novel, which he writes to try and cope with the overwhelming sadness stemming from the accidental death of his 5 year old son Walt. It’s a bestseller: The World According to Bensenhaver. 

Arden Bensenhaver is the titular character. He is a police detective working on the Hope Standish rape case. His own wife was raped some  years before. Bensenhaver has no mercy for rapists. He tampers with the evidence and is subsequently forced to retire. Hope Standish’s husband Dorsey hires Bensenhaver as a bodyguard but Hope tires of him and forces him to leave. Later Bensenhaver has a stroke, returns to the Standish household and, mistaking Dorsey for an intruder, shoots him dead. Bensenhaver spent the rest of his life in a home for the criminally insane. [And this was a bestseller?]

While Garp is writing his next book, My Father’s Illusions, he is shot dead.

Also featured in The World According to Garp is A Sexual Suspect an autobiography by Garp’s mother Jenny Fields, also edited by John Wolf. It is a success and Jenny becomes a celebrity, a successful feminist icon, but later she is assassinated at a political rally.

I read The World According to Garp once. Because it was the sort of book you’re supposed to read. Well, I didn’t enjoy it much. So all this was researched online. Apparently it was a bestseller.