The Cider House Rules
The Cider House Rules, novel by John Irving, published in 1985.
One of Irving’s most political and controversial novels, openly Dickensian in its broad scope, The Cider House Rules explores the contentious issue of abortion, as well as those of addiction, racism, and rejection. Dr. Wilbur Larch, trained as an obstetrician, is the ether-addicted and childless proprietor of the St. Cloud’s Orphanage in 1920s Maine. After many years witnessing unwanted children and deaths from backstreet abortions, Dr. Larch starts an illegal, and safe, abortion clinic at the orphanage. Homer Wells is one of the orphans, a bright and enterprising boy who appears to be inexplicably unadoptable, being returned again and again to the orphanage from would-be families. Larch realizes Homer will probably spend his life in the orphanage and decides to train him to take over his profession as St. Cloud’s illegal abortionist.
But Homer does not agree with abortion, and he becomes involved with a well-to-do local family of apple growers and the migrant black workers who travel north to work their orchards each year. Dr. Larch implores Homer to help the helpless, saying, “Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.” In the end, though, Dr. Larch must come to terms with Homer’s reluctance both to follow his professional footsteps and to return to St. Cloud’s, while Homer’s life develops complications of its own as love, and World War II, intervene. In dealing with the racism of the time, the novel’s title derives from a list of rules Homer posts in the Cider House. These are supposed to keep order and safety among the migrant workers, but Homer is unaware that they resent and subvert these rules. Along with Homer, the reader comes to realize that the real rules of the Cider House, and of life, are never written down.
The Cider House Rules was adapted as a film in 1999, with a screenplay by Irving. Directed by Lasse Hallström, it starred Michael Caine as Dr. Larch and a young Tobey Maguire as Homer Wells. The film, with Dr. Larch’s loving nightly valediction to the orphans, “Goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England,” earned Caine the second Academy Award of his career.