The first time that I saw it -- and I saw the film before I read the book -- I thought, "My God, it's an abortion movie." I'd read about a doctor and an orphanage, but I wasn't familiar with the abortion aspect. Is that something that you wish had played louder? The book was written in the '80s during the really heavy abortion wars, which seem to have tapered off.

I disagree. I don't think that they have tapered off. I think that the climate toward abortion is more volatile and divisive today. [When the book was published] a number of people -- friends of mine, feminists -- said to me, "It's kind of quaint of you to write about this subject now that it's resolved."

I said, "You think it's resolved?" It was, "Well, this book is good-hearted and it's pro-choice, but we've fought that battle and it's over now." Roe vs. Wade was a scant 12 years old.

Well, look at what happened during the Senate debate of the partial-birth abortion business, when Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat, called for a non-binding vote among the Senate of who liked Roe vs. Wade and who would as soon be rid of it. And what was that vote? 61 or 59. It was fucking close.

It wouldn't have been that close in '85. And here we're going into yet another presidential election where the front-running Republican candidates are comfortable in their abortion policies. They are confidently anti-choice. I believe that the day a Republican is pro-choice, he's going to win by a landslide. I could vote for a Republican for president, but I could never vote for a candidate who was not pro-choice.

One of the things you know about "My Movie Business" that I complained about most of all was that the biggest loss from the novel was not the characters that I had to lose and their story lines, but what I call the passage of time. I thought it was a tremendous burden to make this film happen in two-and-a-half years, as opposed to 15 years. Something of the epic nature was going to be lost. But there was something that we gained, that even as I was writing "My Movie Business" I wasn't aware of. And that is that the emotional thing that when Homer comes back to the orphanage, the same unadopted kids are there.

And you're getting two sides, one of which is a warm, uplifting story about him coming back, and the other, which is very sad and terrible that it's the same kids.

It's also very sad and terrible that this young man has given up his life in a sense. There was an earlier draft of the screenplay that was too dark. We decided to end the film the same, with the kids going to bed, feeling secure that Homer was back. I had a scene that was tacked on, it was what happened after that scene, when Homer goes down the hall to his office and sits down, and there are his companions for the rest of his life, the old nurses.

There was a sense of this is what this guy's chosen. He's made a considerable sacrifice. There was that sense that you've confined yourself to spend the rest of your life in your aunt's house.

I need to ask my one crude question, because I know that you approve of the crude.

I love the crude.

As a child, I was scarred by the blow job scene in "The World According to Garp." Yet again, there is some pretty disturbing oral sex -- the photograph with the pony -- that is formative for Homer in the book. What is the connection? What is the fascination for you?

Do you mean the trauma of first sexual experiences?

I mean oral sex. Why is that something that you return to?

I just think it is some ... The younger you are when it happens to you, the more unlikely it seems. [laughs.]

The more ... It's not ... It is an extraordinary thing that people have thought of doing. And I think that the younger you are when it happens to you the first time the more shocking and surprising and exciting it is.

So much of writing is in not losing touch with what an experience the passage from childhood to adulthood truly was. Dickens always said that he was a writer because he never lost touch with his childhood. I think that the same could be said for any writer. I think that one of the issues that is responsible for the success of "The Cider House Rules" on audiences is Tobey Maguire. He makes a very subtle change from boyhood to manhood. It takes most of the movie for him to get to that point where he stops making these childish excuses. I'm sure the second time that he says, "I am not a doctor," the audience says, "Of course he is." You only have to deny something twice for the audience to say, "Oh, yeah?" You know, "I never had sex with that woman."

Recent Stories