Jenny rapes an incapacitated, dying soldier who cannot speak or consent, becoming pregnant with her son T.S. Garp.

Jenny accepts a nursing position at the Steering School to raise her son independently outside her wealthy parents' home.

Garp meets wrestling coach Ernie Holm's daughter Helen and resolves to become a serious writer to impress her.

Garp and Jenny travel to Vienna, where he begins writing a story inspired by a traveling circus he witnesses.

Jenny completes her autobiography A Sexual Suspect, which becomes a landmark text for second-wave feminists worldwide.

Helen reads Garp's completed story 'The Pension Grillparzer' and agrees to marry him.

Garp and Helen establish a nontraditional marriage with Helen as breadwinner and Garp as stay-at-home writer and parent.

Garp's car collides with Michael Milton's in the driveway, killing son Walt and costing Duncan his eye.

The family recovers at Dog's Head Harbor, and Helen gives birth to a daughter they name Jenny.

Jenny Fields is shot and killed at a political rally by a man who blames her book for destroying his marriage.

Garp disguises himself as a woman to attend his mother's feminist funeral and meets the real Ellen James on the plane home.

Garp and Helen move to the Steering School, where he volunteers to coach wrestling and she teaches English.

Garp establishes the Fields Foundation in his mother's honor, and Roberta Muldoon becomes its live-in administrator.

An Ellen Jamesian drives a car directly at Garp during his morning jog, crashing and killing only herself.

Childhood acquaintance Pooh Percy shoots Garp during wrestling practice, and he dies in Helen's arms at age thirty-three.

Jenny Fields rapes an incapacitated, dying soldier to conceive her son T.S. Garp, then raises him independently at the Steering School. Garp grows up determined to become a writer, courts and marries Helen Holm, and builds a nontraditional domestic life shaped by his mother's towering feminist fame. A catastrophic car accident in their own driveway kills their son Walt and sends the family into prolonged grief and recovery. After the family slowly rebuilds, Jenny is assassinated at a political rally, and Garp mourns her in disguise at her exclusively female funeral before meeting the real Ellen James. He and Helen eventually settle at the Steering School, where he coaches wrestling and works to honor his mother's legacy through the Fields Foundation. Garp's life ends violently when he is shot by a radicalized acquaintance during wrestling practice at age thirty-three.

The headline events of Garp's life, from his unconventional birth to his assassination.

Jenny stabs a soldier who assaults her in a movie theater and is arrested after emerging covered in his blood.

Young Garp nearly falls to his death from the school rooftop while chasing a pigeon with a lacrosse stick.

The Percy family's ill-tempered dog Bonkers tears off part of Garp's ear during a childhood feud between the families.

Garp's kind English teacher Tinch freezes to death after falling on a winter night following a faculty party.

Garp loses his virginity to Cushie Percy the night before he and Jenny leave for Vienna.

In Vienna, Garp befriends Charlotte, a sex worker who gives him emotional warmth and renewed creative confidence.

Charlotte dies in a Vienna hospital, and Garp writes to ask Helen to marry him but she refuses.

Garp's first novel Procrastination is published but reviewed primarily as the work of the feminist Jenny Fields's son.

Garp meets Roberta Muldoon, a trans woman and former NFL tight end who becomes his closest friend.

Garp encounters a traumatized, naked ten-year-old girl in the park and helps police identify and catch her rapist.

Garp and Helen enter a secret mutual affair arrangement with friends Harrison and Alice Fletcher, which Helen ultimately ends.

Garp follows a speeding car late at night and discovers Mrs. Ralph sobbing over her husband having left her.

The World According to Bensenhaver is published and divides critics, some calling it feminist and others calling it sensationalist.

Dean Bodger admits to Garp that he found Ernie Holm dead from a heart attack while reading Crotch Shots.

Garp travels to New Hampshire to personally evaluate Mrs. Truckenmiller, widow of his mother's assassin, for a foundation grant.

Jenny's fierce independence is established long before Garp is born, through her violent self-defense against a soldier and her refusal to conform to anyone's expectations of womanhood. Garp's childhood at Steering is marked by minor injuries, eccentric teachers, and early sexual adventures that set the pattern for his adult behavior. His time in Vienna produces not only his most celebrated early work but also illness and heartbreak, including the death of his friend Charlotte. Back in America, Garp's world expands through a deep friendship with Roberta Muldoon and uneasy encounters with neighbors that expose the fragility beneath his domestic life. His most ambitious and divisive novel, The World According to Bensenhaver, tests his relationships and reputation in equal measure. The final events in this pool follow the consequences of Garp's choices rippling through the foundation he built and the lives he shaped.

The secondary events and relationships that fill out the world surrounding Garp.

Jenny is fired from the hospital after her pregnancy becomes visible and is forced to retreat to her parents' home.

Stewart Percy inspects Garp's bitten ear and declares the boy looks like a 'Jap,' sparking damaging rumors about Garp's parentage.

Jenny secretly investigates all available school sports and signs Garp up for wrestling, shaping the course of his life.

Jenny gives Garp money to spend the night with a Viennese sex worker, openly accepting her son's lust as unavoidable.

Garp contracts gonorrhea after sleeping carelessly with an American girl in Vienna, alarming Charlotte and requiring medical treatment.

Jenny reads Garp's completed 'Pension Grillparzer' for the first time on the plane home from Vienna.

Helen finishes college early and earns her PhD in English at twenty-three, establishing herself as a formidable academic.

A mute woman from the Ellen James Society arrives at Garp's home as one of Jenny's devotees, shocking and repulsing him.

Garp urgently writes the story 'Vigilance' to reclaim Helen's literary attention after finding her absorbed in Michael Milton's work.

Michael Milton's girlfriend Margie Tallworth arrives at Garp's door with a note about the affair but panics and drops it.

Helen performs oral sex on Michael Milton in his parked car, hoping to end the affair and make him leave quietly.

The car accident leaves Garp's jaw broken, forcing him to communicate through written notes like the Ellen Jamesians he mocks.

Garp and Helen recall young Walt coining the phrase 'Under Toad' for the family's shared dread of anxiety and death.

Pooh Percy recognizes Garp in women's clothing at Jenny's funeral and loudly accuses him of having killed her sister Cushie.

After Garp's death his books gain wide readership, Duncan becomes an artist, Roberta dies suddenly, and Jenny Garp dedicates herself to nursing and her family's legacy.

The earliest events in this pool capture the shame and stubborn determination that defined Jenny's path to motherhood and quietly shaped Garp's upbringing at Steering. Key scenes in Vienna reveal how lust, illness, and creative ambition became entangled at a formative moment in both mother and son's lives. Back in America, small revelations about Helen's emotional distance and Michael Milton's growing intrusion build slowly toward the catastrophic accident that redefines the entire family. In the aftermath, Garp's forced wordlessness cruelly mirrors the radical choices he has always despised, while private moments of grief and reconnection mark a fragile path forward. The funeral sequence delivers a devastating public humiliation that nonetheless delivers Garp to the real Ellen James, a pivotal new presence in the family. The pool closes with Garp's assassination and its long aftermath, confirming the dread of the Under Toad that he carried his entire life.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that redirect Garp's story.