Customer Reviews

A Bed by the Window: A Novel Of Mystery And Redemption

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Scott Peck has turned his hand to fiction with this surprisingly satisfying tale of love and emotion set in a nursing home. Many of us think of nursing homes as emotionally gray places, where human passions have gone out and hope and longing now revolve around next Sunday's visiting hours and the next meal. Well, not so the Willow Glen. The most improbable people fall in love, and their passions become all the keener because they have time to focus on each other.

To quote Madeleine L'Engle's review on the book jacket, "The reader truly cares about the characters, and it is wonderful to see the growing into fullness of some of them." Stephen Solaris, a 29-year-old cerebral palsy victim unable even to speak, becomes the emotional center of Willow Glen. Free of the distractions of daily existence, he has developed a deep inner life and an ability to communicate without words. Other characters are drawn into his orbit: nurse Heather Barsten, psychotherapist Stasz Kolnietz, the old lovers Marion Grochowski and Tim O'Hara, and a full cast of nursing home residents and attendants.

Although it starts as a novel of character, A Bed by the Window becomes a murder mystery. Willow Glen is torn apart by a brutal murder that shakes every character. It's a page-turner, both for the major mystery (Who in this place would kill - or even could?) and the subplots (Will Tim O'Hara's blocked arteries hold up till the end of the book? Will Heather stop loving losers and find a nice man?)

But the book rises and falls on its characters. Scott Peck has created characters the reader cares about. Although they sometimes approach stereotypes, his characters have an "Everyman" feel that makes you care rather than detach. Long after I first read the book, I remembered each character in detail - and that's one criterion of good fiction, isn't it?

Ever increasing awareness. This is a theme that is never far from the center of what Peck is writing about, and now I can say that in his fiction, he remains as Peckish as ever. I, for one, do not mind this at all... it's an important theme, and I believe he does a wonderful job of incorporating it into this novel.
Willow Glen is a nursing home, usually quite serene and unassuming. It is a well-run (one of the finest in the state), respectable institution. Who would think that it is literally percolating just this side of murder? Late one night the grisly crime takes place, and all of a sudden everyone from resident to employee is thrust into the category of "suspect".
As Detective Petri begins his investigation, he soon finds that no-one is more "suspect" than Willow Glen's most loved and respected nurse, Heather Barsten. Not only was she one of two nurses on duty in C-Wing the night of the crime, but she also had a personal relationship with the victim that seems to incriminate her beyond any doubt in the mind of Petri.
At first, he relentlessly focuses on Heather. But his subsequent interviews with certain residents and staff begin to reveal that the net ought to be cast much wider, and soon Petri is as confused as the reader.
Really, as a "whodunnit" sort of thing, I thought the novel was excellent. My own initial hunches proved false in the end, as the possibilities were many, and Peck did well in keeping the reader (me) in suspense.
Where the novel may weigh heavy with many readers is in the fact that it is laced with a LOT of psychological theory, sometimes veering into the theological. It can be said that the book's real theme is this thing about coming to a place of awareness/wholeness... it ends up being a process that nearly every single character has to personally deal with in their life. Three of the characters (in my opinion) represent people that are already at a high level of personal awareness (or one might even use Maslow's term "self-actualization" here)... pretty much everyone else is fraught with serious problems and unresolved issues in their personal lives. (This is an accurate reflection of a concept that Peck discusses elsewhere in his non-fictional books... to paraphrase, simply that ALL people, Peck himself included, are mentally ill to a certain degree. In other words, we differ not in presence of illness, but rather in degree of incapacitation). This is a concept that I happen to agree with, and therefore I don't mind seeing it in force in this fictional account of a bunch of people.
Some people in A Bed By The Window are drawn toward these three "aware" characters (I purposely do not reveal who they are, in this review)... and others are repulsed by them.
We come to see the results of either action!
And it makes for a great book. Well worth reading. I found it to be a real page-turner. The lack of a fifth star is only due to the fact that it seems that TOO MANY things were resolved in the end. Too many people made that leap into profound soulwork... even for fiction. In a perfect world, perhaps it would be so.
Another big theme in this story may be something like "If we see only what is on the surface of life (in our own life, and in the life of others) we do not see very much." True self-awareness is all about digging, searching, and asking questions of what lies in, around, and even behind, our motives and actions.
As Dr. Kolnietz (who I see as the fictional embodiment of the author) says on p.242: "We are as sick as our secrets. The evil are the sickest of all people because everything about them is secret."

The characters in Scott Pecks' novel "A Bed by the Window" leapt off the pages into my life. Each character reminded me of aspects of myself and helped me understand others and myself better.
From Heather, the nurse, I learned we sometimes see the light and take great care of others but not ourselves.
From Stephen I learned we can touch the hearts and minds of others in spite of being imprisoned in a helpless body and unable to speak.
From Heather and Stephen's love for each other I learned the importance of being true to ourselves, that secrets can make us sick and the importance of seeking people who are honest with themselves.
From Mrs. Grochowski I learned the power of being aware and how when we value looking good and working hard at being nice things don't work out so nicely.
From Lieutenant Petri I learned that ambition can make us or break us and that there is power in the simplicity that is born out of complexity.
From Georgia I learned we can blame our children or hold them responsible for our problems and that being "abnormal" can be healthy.
From Rachel I learned that people who are hate filled tend to become hateful. She shows us the dark side of ourselves and forces us to confront what constitutes evil.
From Dr. Kolnietz, the psychiatrist, I learned the virtue of being patient with ambiguity, how being emotionally unconscious can hurt us and how difficult it is to let go of hate as it energizes us and feeds on itself.
Reading this book made me feel richer and wiser and in awe of life's paradoxes and the great mystery behind the material world.

For Christ Sake, get to the point already. That was what I kept thinking when this young idiot is trying to find an ass clown. Then it gets really lathery preachy. I was just like okay okay, by about page 205 of 310 I wanted it to be over already. I had to finish. I thought I was finished then it got really preachy. Just way way too much soapy soap soap.

Because it was of little significance to the story actually--the bed by the window, I mean. The story is interesting and has several twists in the plot but is somewhat predictable and even disappointing with the results of the mystery. However, I loved the character development and liked the use of both evil characteristics and godly ones. It is definitely engaging and easy to read. I think it would be an excellent book for a book club to use.

This book was terrific. I found myself knowing each of the characters in a way that most fiction writers are never able to do. The use of wisdom and the method of delivery was interesting and spell binding. I was sad it ended. I could have gone on forever.

M. Scott Peck is an excellent writer. I just finished listening to this book on an audio cassette. It was just great - I have to go out and buy the book because the abridged version was magnificent - - I can only imagine how rich the unabridged book must be!!! Five Stars!

To each his or her own but I found this book to be very disappointing. The author seemed obsessed with the theme of sex in a nursing home and it greatly overshadowed any later attempt to bring in a "mystery" plot. I would rate the sex scenes depicted in this book an "X" (even by today's standards), if this was made into a movie. This book is not one I'd want my children or teens to read. To be truthful I wouldn't recommend the book to any one. This is just my opinion but I found the book vulgar and the continuous theme of sex (that seemed to permeate every page) quite boring.