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Old Friends

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This is the story of Joe and Lou and their days in Linda Manor, and it is a story of growing old. Kidder juxtaposes the wrenching images of residents struggling with dementia and rapidly failing health with those of residents reaching out to one another in new friendships and coming to terms with their pasts. He deals frankly with the disadvantages of even the finest nursing home care: under-staffing, lack of empathy for residents, loneliness, and even lousy food. And he doesn't hesitate to acknowledge the imminence of death in such places. But, ultimately, this isn't a sad or depressing book. Joe and Lou accept that death is close, but they also learn to reconcile who they've been with who they've become. They find comfort and joy in their friendship, and their conversations provoke more smiles and quiet chuckles than tears. A topic that could have been rendered maudlin by another writer becomes an engaging treatment in Kidder's prose.

"For most of those long-lived, ailing people, Linda Manor represented all the permanence that life still had to offer. It was their home for the duration, their last place on earth." Thus writes Tracy Kidder in "Old Friends", an account of life in Linda Manor, a Massachussets old folk's home. It would be a useful exercise to watch a day's television and see how many elderly people are featured. The old are increasingly invisible in our society.

Once respect for one's elders was a maxim in most cultures. Now all has changed in the consumer capitalist west; with a prevalent worship of a narrowly-defined sense of "youth" - physically slim, impulsive, impatient; and the traditional virtues of the elderly - experience, deliberation, rumination - are derided in that accurate barometer of the spirit of the times, advertising. In medical training, there is an unspoken but clear bias against the elderly; students are advised to ensure that the stereotypically scatty little old lady sticks to matters of strict clinical relevance.

The notion that we have anything to learn from the elderly has disappeared from most contemporary culture. The elderly are a nuisance, a problem to be medicated and managed and forgotten. Kidder's book - unsentimental and heartbreaking, a clear-eyed portrait full of dignity and beauty and humour - is a counterblast to the cult of youth and the pathologising of old age. Increasingly we, as young people, live lives surrounded by people of our own age only - the decline of large families mean that we are less likely to have infant siblings or indeed much older siblings, while the large extended family gathering is increasingly dwindling.

The blurb on the back of "Old Friends" begins:"What's wrong with Tracy Kidder? A robust man, even a youthful one, a father fit and healthy, with years of life ahead of him: why did he voluntarily enter an old people's home?" One might fear a self-fixated meditation on the authors own concerns; but Kidder is an absent presence in the book; he gives his elderly cast the stage. The focus is mainly on Lou, a serene, wise ninety year old Philadelphian; and his roommate Joe, a tempermental impatient seventy-two year old who chafes at existence in the home after an active life. Kidder presumably had an extraordinary degree of access; not merely physical but also emotional. We are taken into the rooms of the dying, the deepest fears of those who will shortly join their ranks, the sadness and guilt of relatives. We see the power structure of the nursing home, a relatively enlightened one where nevertheless elderly people with enormous professional and administrative experience are made - with the best intentions - to feel like children.

We learn from the elderly in this book; and the elderly learn from each other. The gruff taciturn Joe is gently coached by Lou into telling his wife he loves her. Joe and Lou coach the staff of Linda Manor in tact and sensitivity- for example the hearty "Did you have a bowel movement today?" is replaced by the less intrusive"Did you or didn't you?" The full emotional range is here; love, ambition, anger, jealousy, pride; life in its most distilled, pure form - life facing

After spending a year at Linda Manor, a nursing home in Massachusetts, Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder offers no generalized discourse on the problems of aging in America, but rather a touching story of friendship, reconciliation, and peace.

Joe Torchio is 72-years-old, a former probation officer, and has suffered a stroke. Bitterly railing against the losses that have beset him in life, the death of a son, the birth of a retarded daughter, Joe has forsaken his Catholic faith.

At 92 years of age, Lou Freed is blind yet resolutely curious about everything. He is a Jew who is not terribly religious but is sometimes given to pondering theological questions.

The pairing of this unlikely duo as roommates might bode bickering and discontent. Not so in Kidder's hands - we find a gradually blooming friendship which enables both men to live in their new environment and face limited futures with equanimity, courage, and grace.

This is not just Lou and Joe's story, it may be your story or mine. Of course, it is a tale of old age and approaching death. It is also a toast to life.

- Gail Cooke

Kidder excels at writing about people we take for granted and looking at them with sensitivity and compassion. In this book he takes the reader to Linda Manor, a Massachusetts nursing home, and shows the day to day life of the residents. The stereotypes associated with the elderly are quietly shattered by the men and women introduced in Kidder's book. Lives are relived, pain is dealt with and each day is a challenge to be met. Kidder does not hide his admiration for some of these people and his affection is contagious. You learn to care for these people and that is what makes this book so successful.

This reads like eloquent fiction, but is in truth the story of Tracy's father. He doesn't say which character his father is, and he doesn't insert himself into the story. But what a wonderful, heart-bending story it is. At all times the sadness of the situation is eclipsed by the bravery and courage of people without hope; people who do the best they can, and it is more than enough. For any of us who will grow old, which is most of us, this is a must read.

In Tracy Kidder's wonderful book, the answer to this question is a resounding "yes." Kidder's book is a cinema verite-style documentary into the daily lives of several residents of Linda Manor nursing home, with a special focus on two men, Joe and Lou, who are assigned to the same room. Strangers at the beginning of the book, these two very different men become "old" friends over the course of a year.

Kidder's book captures vividly the experience of being alive and alert, full of memories and emotions, in circumstances that greatly restrict freedom of movement and freedom of choice. It challenges the reader to face the unwelcome realities of aging, but in a way that allows us to recognize the humanity and dignity of people regardless of their age.

I am not reassured by Kidder's reporting that half of us will spend at least some of our last time on earth in a nursing home. But after reading this book, I feel that I have faced some fears that I've been avoiding. I can also see, when I look at others, the complete arc of their lives, from birth to death, and that perspective does much to make me thankful for whatever the present moment happens to hold for each of us.

I had just signed up for long-term nursing care insurance, a very expensive commitment. I had a number of books I had been waiting to read, and I picked up OLD FRIENDS, thinking I would read a piece of nostalgia.

I was wrong. I picked up and read enthusiastically a book about nursing homes. Tracy Kidder's book makes clear what my long-term insurance is all about. No brochures could have described what he does here.

I became enmeshed in the lives of the residents. I watched them become "nudnicks." I overheard their conversations about life and death. I, too, looked forward to Lou's rambling memories. I worried about Joe's toe and if he'd lose it.

Both of my parents died suddenly, and as a result I had no experience with long-term care. I say "God bless" to all the workers in nursing homes and to Tracy Kidder who made this entire experience so vivid.

I now feel prepared myself if I should ever need this care.

Larry Rochelle, author of GULF GHOST, BLUE ICE and GHOSTLY EMBERS: VISIONS OF TOLEDO

This book chronicles a year in the lives of the residents of an ordinary American nursing home. From 1989-1991, Kidder spent much time getting to know the residents of nursing home on the outskirts of Northampton, Massachusetts. In this book, he describes some of the characters he met there, and some of the friends he got to know well. He describes some of the special events that occurred in the nursing home that year, but also relates much of the ordinary daily occurrences in nursing home life, from the morning bowel movement survey, to watching a demented resident try to pick the flowers in the carpet, to chatting with the guys in the breakfast club supervising the dining room set-up.

Although Kidder tries to present a cross-section of nursing home residents, from the former vaudeville performer, to the bank vice president, many of his tales focus on the drama and antics of two roommates, Lou and Joe. The pace of the book can be agonizingly slow in places, as we wait for something to happen. The pacing is one way for Kidder to capture the sense of the place, a place where every day is more or less like the next--"Beautiful day," as one resident writes in her journal every morning. It's an eye-opening experience to read this book, and come to understand the heroic effort it takes to present a smiling face to the world when trapped in a body wracked by aches and pains while stuck in an institution away from family and friends, most often against one's wishes.

This is a beautifully meandering story of two nursing home residents, their year spent in a growing friendship within the walls of "Linda Manor." And it's more than that-- In this story, Tracy Kidder involves a whole cast of residents, interacting in ways that paint a more creatively human picture of a nursing home than most would imagine is the case. They make up a community in and of themselves, even planning and taking part in a play put on for other residents, staff, & families. It's a place of friendships, laughs, worries, dread concerns, but mostly of friendships and the efforts of the elderly characters in reaching out to their fellow residents during the last chapters of their lives. I appreciated the realism Kidder offers in this book, clearly based on his own one-year experience at the actual "Linda Manor" in Massachusetts.

So often, once people retire and age, they seem to become part of a great, gray mass. Younger people are known by their work, which is usually public. Old people become somehow anonymous, and that must be one of the greatest tragedies of growing old. This witty book illustrates nursing home residents as individuals who can only be known with patience and by observing their "work." The style is kind without a drop of sentiment. Nobody wants to be in a nursing home, and Kidder reminds of why, while reminding us that life, at all stages, is interesting, rewarding, and that all people, whatever their circumstances, experience happiness, grief, anger, frustration, and love. I listened to this book on my MP3 player, and didn't find its pace too slow, maybe because it simply felt like daily life. I felt compelled to create this review because I recently read "The Sweet Bye and Bye" which seemed too sugary and reminded me of how much I'd enjoyed Kidder's book.