All these years later, Mr. Irving acknowledged that the slow creep of mortality had affected how he approached his work. It was within the last decade that he began to prioritize the projects he felt were the most difficult — those outside his personal experience that would require more research and time — and save his easier, more straightforward... See more

“Writing is rewriting and rethinking,” he said. “And you can’t learn to wrestle without doing it again and again and again, until it’s an instinct, until it’s a reflex.”