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In August, I visited my mother in Michigan. She lives, as she has for the past 13 years, in a retirement community that is now known as The Park at Trowbridge, but it has had other owners and other names over those years. Surprisingly, many of the residents, and many of her good friends there, have been at Trowbridge almost as long as my mother, and occasionally longer. So I decided to pick up a copy of “Old Friends” to read and see if it rang true to what I currently was witnessing and hearing from my mother and her friends. And knowing it was written by such a competent author as Tracy Kidder made me confident that I would find not only a ring of truth in the book but characters that could have been the real folks that I have come to know, appreciate and enjoy at Trowbridge. What a gem of a book! But don’t just take my opinion of the book.
“Tracy Kidder writes of elemental things - work, home, education, and community” writes Elaine Hines in her essay “In His Element: Tracy Kidder.” She goes on to explain, “He writes big by writing small, grabbing the reader by focusing on the thousand daily details of company, one house, one schoolroom, one town.”
Kidder states, in his interview with Hines, “I’m a little suspicious of the great, overarching view. It always leaves something out. What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I’m interested in how ordinary people live their lives.”
One of America’s leading writers of non-fiction, Kidder not only captures how ordinary people live their lives, but he also captures what lies beneath the surface, beyond the edges.
The Library Journal wrote “As in his Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘The Soul of a New Machine,’ ‘House,’ and the best-selling ‘Among Schoolchildren,’ Kidder reveals his extraordinary talent as a storyteller by taking the potentially unpalatable subject of life in a nursing home and making it into a highly readable, engrossing account in ‘Old Friends.’ Through the eyes of roommates Lou and Joe, we experience daily life in the Linda Manor Nursing Home in Northampton, Massachusetts. Kidder displays an uncanny ability to reveal glimpses of the residents’ former lives and their current hopes and fears without becoming sentimental or maudlin. This is a life that we all hope to avoid, both for ourselves and our loved ones; yet when we see it as it is portrayed in ‘Old Friends’ it becomes less terrifying.”
“An eloquent account,” describes Kirkus Reviews, “neither bitter nor saccharine, of daily life in a nursing home. Kidder has a unique talent for transforming the minutiae of living into a mosaic that brings focus to issues — like aging — that have become diffuse intellectual exercises or emotionally charged agendas. Center stage here are two men — Lou, in his 90s, and Joe, in his 70s — roommates by chance in a nursing home in western Massachusetts. Lou is gentle and considerate, Joe gruff and passionate. Lou leads Joe to a new thoughtfulness, and Joe listens patiently to Lou’s frequent retellings of boyhood stories. Kidder captures their characters, their growing friendship, and their wit through a straightforward narration that’s extraordinarily revealing about courage in the face of sickness and age. He visited the nursing home every day for a year, talking to and observing residents, relatives and friends who visited, and staff. We meet Eleanor the actress; Winifred the activist, who must be hoisted mechanically from her bed and lowered into her wheelchair; Art the bon vivant; and others in varying stages of mental and physical impairment. Kidder’s sympathetic viewpoint doesn't gloss over the pain, loneliness, and humiliation of deteriorating faculties. As he points out, American culture’s current celebration of ‘successful aging,’ often depicted in photographs of old folks wearing tennis clothes, leaves out a lot of people ... more than a million of them in nursing homes now.”
Missing here, though, are the viewpoints of the Linda Manor staff, heard from only indirectly as they interact with residents. Rich detail and true-to-the-ear dialogue let the brave and determined elderly speak for themselves — and for the continually surprising potential of the human spirit. This wonderfully different book is a Good Read for anyone.
Born in New York City in 1945, Kidder spent his childhood in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where his father was a lawyer and his mother a teacher. He attended Harvard where he earned a bacherlor’s of arts in 1967. From June 1968 until June 1969, he served as a lieutenant in Vietnam for which he was awarded a Bronze Star.
Following the war, Kidder obtained his master’s of arts from the University of Iowa, where he participated in the Writers' Workshop, a program known for the literary accomplishments of its faculty and alumni. It was there that Kidder met Atlantic Monthly Contributing Editor Dan Wakefield, who helped him get his first assignment for the magazine as a freelance writer. Kidder’s articles in the The Atlantic have covered a broad array of topics, ranging from railroads, to energy, architecture, the environment among others.
Tracy Kidder's writing has appeared in “The New Yorker,” “The Atlantic Monthly,” “Granta,” “The New York Times Book Review” and “The New York Times OpEd page” and he has also written several short works of fiction. Kidder lives with his wife in western Massachusetts and in Maine where he is at work on a new book.
Books by Tracy Kidder:
“The Road to Yuba City: A Journey into the Juan Corona Murders,” 1974
“The Soul of a New Machine,” 1981
“House,” 1985
“Among Schoolchildren,” 1989,
“Old Friends,” 1994,
“Home Town,” 1999,
“Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World,” 2003 hardcover
“My Detachment: a Memoir,” 2005
Awards:
1989 Robert F. Kennedy Award Winner for “Among School Children”
!982 National Book Award Winner for “Soul of a New Machine”
!982 Pulitzer Prize Winner For “Soul of a New Machine”
“Tracy Kidder writes of elemental things - work, home, education, and community” writes Elaine Hines in her essay “In His Element: Tracy Kidder.” She goes on to explain, “He writes big by writing small, grabbing the reader by focusing on the thousand daily details of company, one house, one schoolroom, one town.”
Kidder states, in his interview with Hines, “I’m a little suspicious of the great, overarching view. It always leaves something out. What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I’m interested in how ordinary people live their lives.”
One of America’s leading writers of non-fiction, Kidder not only captures how ordinary people live their lives, but he also captures what lies beneath the surface, beyond the edges.
The Library Journal wrote “As in his Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘The Soul of a New Machine,’ ‘House,’ and the best-selling ‘Among Schoolchildren,’ Kidder reveals his extraordinary talent as a storyteller by taking the potentially unpalatable subject of life in a nursing home and making it into a highly readable, engrossing account in ‘Old Friends.’ Through the eyes of roommates Lou and Joe, we experience daily life in the Linda Manor Nursing Home in Northampton, Massachusetts. Kidder displays an uncanny ability to reveal glimpses of the residents’ former lives and their current hopes and fears without becoming sentimental or maudlin. This is a life that we all hope to avoid, both for ourselves and our loved ones; yet when we see it as it is portrayed in ‘Old Friends’ it becomes less terrifying.”
“An eloquent account,” describes Kirkus Reviews, “neither bitter nor saccharine, of daily life in a nursing home. Kidder has a unique talent for transforming the minutiae of living into a mosaic that brings focus to issues — like aging — that have become diffuse intellectual exercises or emotionally charged agendas. Center stage here are two men — Lou, in his 90s, and Joe, in his 70s — roommates by chance in a nursing home in western Massachusetts. Lou is gentle and considerate, Joe gruff and passionate. Lou leads Joe to a new thoughtfulness, and Joe listens patiently to Lou’s frequent retellings of boyhood stories. Kidder captures their characters, their growing friendship, and their wit through a straightforward narration that’s extraordinarily revealing about courage in the face of sickness and age. He visited the nursing home every day for a year, talking to and observing residents, relatives and friends who visited, and staff. We meet Eleanor the actress; Winifred the activist, who must be hoisted mechanically from her bed and lowered into her wheelchair; Art the bon vivant; and others in varying stages of mental and physical impairment. Kidder’s sympathetic viewpoint doesn't gloss over the pain, loneliness, and humiliation of deteriorating faculties. As he points out, American culture’s current celebration of ‘successful aging,’ often depicted in photographs of old folks wearing tennis clothes, leaves out a lot of people ... more than a million of them in nursing homes now.”
Missing here, though, are the viewpoints of the Linda Manor staff, heard from only indirectly as they interact with residents. Rich detail and true-to-the-ear dialogue let the brave and determined elderly speak for themselves — and for the continually surprising potential of the human spirit. This wonderfully different book is a Good Read for anyone.
Born in New York City in 1945, Kidder spent his childhood in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where his father was a lawyer and his mother a teacher. He attended Harvard where he earned a bacherlor’s of arts in 1967. From June 1968 until June 1969, he served as a lieutenant in Vietnam for which he was awarded a Bronze Star.
Following the war, Kidder obtained his master’s of arts from the University of Iowa, where he participated in the Writers' Workshop, a program known for the literary accomplishments of its faculty and alumni. It was there that Kidder met Atlantic Monthly Contributing Editor Dan Wakefield, who helped him get his first assignment for the magazine as a freelance writer. Kidder’s articles in the The Atlantic have covered a broad array of topics, ranging from railroads, to energy, architecture, the environment among others.
Tracy Kidder's writing has appeared in “The New Yorker,” “The Atlantic Monthly,” “Granta,” “The New York Times Book Review” and “The New York Times OpEd page” and he has also written several short works of fiction. Kidder lives with his wife in western Massachusetts and in Maine where he is at work on a new book.
Books by Tracy Kidder:
“The Road to Yuba City: A Journey into the Juan Corona Murders,” 1974
“The Soul of a New Machine,” 1981
“House,” 1985
“Among Schoolchildren,” 1989,
“Old Friends,” 1994,
“Home Town,” 1999,
“Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World,” 2003 hardcover
“My Detachment: a Memoir,” 2005
Awards:
1989 Robert F. Kennedy Award Winner for “Among School Children”
!982 National Book Award Winner for “Soul of a New Machine”
!982 Pulitzer Prize Winner For “Soul of a New Machine”
Barbara's Good Reads List:
Adults (fiction): “A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers: Stories That Celebrate the Women Who Do It All” by Marilee Stark, Cynthia Borris, Rachel Sarah and Jennifer Eyre White
Young Adult (ages 13 to 17): “Green Goes With Everything: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life and a Cleaner Planet” by Sloan Barnett
Juvenile (4th to 6th grade): “Shadow Of a Bull” by Mai Wojciechowska (Newbery Prize winner)
Children (2nd to 3rd grade): “May I Bring a Friend?” by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, illustrated by Beni Montresor (Caldecott Medal winner)
Books for Book Groups: “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America” by Thomas Friedman
Adults (fiction): “A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers: Stories That Celebrate the Women Who Do It All” by Marilee Stark, Cynthia Borris, Rachel Sarah and Jennifer Eyre White
Young Adult (ages 13 to 17): “Green Goes With Everything: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life and a Cleaner Planet” by Sloan Barnett
Juvenile (4th to 6th grade): “Shadow Of a Bull” by Mai Wojciechowska (Newbery Prize winner)
Children (2nd to 3rd grade): “May I Bring a Friend?” by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, illustrated by Beni Montresor (Caldecott Medal winner)
Books for Book Groups: “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America” by Thomas Friedman
