Old Friends,   ISBN:9780140140910

Customer Rating: 

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.

Customer Rating: 

Tracy Kidder wrote this amazing story about my grandfather Joe Torchio and his nursing home room mate Lou. I hardly remember my grandfather because he died in 1995. The story the Kidder wrote was very beautiful. It help me understand what my grandfather was like in his last years. After this story was published and the 20/20 interview broke, People Magazine published articles, he died. He left this world with a bang. As a reader of the story, it taught me the definition of a true friend. I hope people that purchase this book will get something meaningful out of it.

Customer Rating: 

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.

Customer Rating: 

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

Customer Rating: 

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