Old Friends

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin, 1993 - Medical - 352 pages
"Two old men in a little room. Together they represent some one hundred and sixty years of memory, of hope and achievement and sorrow - of life. They are residents of Linda Manor, a nursing home. What will become of them now?" "Once again, in the humble materials of daily life, Tracy Kidder - the author of House and Among Schoolchildren - has discovered a story of breathtaking intensity and depth. Old Friends introduces us to Lou Freed and Joe Torchio, strangers thrust together as roommates. They discover, as Kidder writes, that the problem of Linda Manor is "the universal problem of separateness," and we watch as, movingly, they set about solving it, with camaraderie and friendship, and ultimately love." "Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize and countless other awards for his best-selling portraits of American life. Now he confronts his greatest theme in this close-in study of old age. With the exactitude and the rich human sympathies for which he has become famous, Kidder opens up this world to us as if it were a wondrous new country - a country that turns out to be very like one's native land." "Old Friends takes place almost entirely in Linda Manor, and its residents become urgently alive - struggling still with their circumstances, their pasts, and the challenge of living a moral life. For all its unflinching reportage, Old Friends is laced with comedy, sometimes with gentle wit, sometimes with farce. In the end, it reminds us of the great continuities, of the possibilities for renewal in the face of mortality, of the survival to the very end of all that is truly essential about life. This is Tracy Kidder's most affecting, and most important, book to date."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

From inside the book

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
47
Section 3
53
Copyright

21 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1993)

Tracy Kidder was educated at the University of Iowa and Harvard University. He served in the US Army in Vietnam. Kidder has garnered numerous literary awards including the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction and the National Book Award for General Nonfiction both in 1982. He has also been honored with the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, 1990 and the Christopher Award, 1990. His publications include numerous nonfiction articles and short fiction for The Atlantic and other periodicals. Non-Fiction books include The Road to Yuba City, Doubleday, 1974; The Soul of a New Machine, Atlantic Monthly-Little Brown, 1981 for which he won a Pulitzer and a National Book Award; House, Houghton Mifflin, 1985; Old Friends, Houghton Mifflin, 1993; Home Town, Random House, 1999; Mountains Beyond Mountains, Random House, 2003; My Detachment, Random House, 2005; Strength in What Remains, Random House, 2009.

Bibliographic information