I was in my third summer of misery, and in the bookstore again, and this time I picked up a used copy of John Irving’s The World According to Garp. As soon as I began to read, I felt a tonal shift, a different sensibility. No one was sobbing so much anymore–including me–and though terrible, outrageously tragic things were going on–the characters in Garp were pushing recklessly forward, almost as if they were daring the universe to stop them. I carried that book with me everywhere and when I finished reading it, I read it again, and when I was done, I realized Irving had knocked me off course. I was finally looking at my life differently, as if I were seeing it from a rear view window, watching it grow smaller and smaller until it vanished, a place I need never revisit. Two months later, I moved to Manhattan. I didn’t have a job. I no longer had a husband. But John Irving gave me a sense that no matter what happened–I would be all right.