Trying to save Piggy Sneed

Trying to Save Piggy Sneedcontains a dozen short works by John Irving, beginning with three memoirs--two of which (including an account of Mr. Irving's dinner with President Reagan at the White House) are new to American readers. The newest and longest of the memoirs, "The Imaginary Girlfriend," is the core of this collection.The middle section of the book is fiction. In 28 years, John Irving has written eight novels--but only a half-dozen short stories he considers "finished;" they are all published here. In the third and final section are three essays of appreciation: one on Günter Grass, two on Charles Dickens.To each of the 12 pieces, which cover 30 years of writing, Mr. Irving has contributed his Author's Notes. These notes provide some perspective on the circumstances surrounding the writing of each piece--for example, an election-year diary of the Bush-Clinton campaigns accompanies Mr. Irving's memoirs of his dinner with Ronald Reagan; and the notes to one of Irving's short stories explain that the story was presented and sold to Playboyas the work of a woman.Trying to Save Piggy Sneedis both as moving and as mischievous as readers would expect from the author of The World According to Garp,The Cider House Rules,A Prayer for Owen Meany,and A Son of the Circus. And Mr. Irving's concise autobiography, "The Imaginary Girlfriend," is both a work of the utmost literary accomplishment and a paradigm for living.