One True Thing

This novel moved me because of how poignantly and subtly it captures family tragedy. But I came to care about this novel for its principles. In a time when relativism is all the rage in highbrow culture, I wish more modern fiction had the guts to be this honest. It nakedly captures the distance between what we overvalue and what we should value. Yet it never feels high-handed. No small feat.

Ellen Gulden is a 23-year-old up-and-coming magazine writer living in New York City, when her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. On a visit home her father tells her that she simply must leave her job and return to help her mother. Kate has always been the quintessential homemaker – excelling at cooking, decorating, sewing, stenciling, needlepoint – every craft and skill to make her house a loving and welcoming home. Ellen has been more like her father – driven and ambitious, given to literary analysis and harsh judgment – but as she spends times with her mother and begins to recognize the hard work and dedication required to be the homemaker Kate is, Ellen arrives at some different conclusions about who she is, who her show more parents are, and their relationships to one another.

This is a thought-provoking read for several reasons. On the surface it deals with death and dying and the way in which our society treats the terminally ill. When the book opens, Ellen is in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her mother. So the reader immediately knows what the pivotal event will be. Ellen then begins to recall the previous months.

The book then begins to deals with the complicated relationships between adult children and their parents. Ellen is a young woman who has always sought her father’s approval, and diminished the contributions of her mother. Living with them again as an adult, in a difficult and trying situation, she slowly awakens to the truth about herself, her parents and siblings. She develops a much closer relationship with her mother, even though she still resents having to be her caregiver. At the end I always did what she asked, even though I hated it … I tried to do it all without screaming, without shouting, “I am dying with you.”

Ellen comes to recognize the value of true friendship, and how she has held people at bay (and why). She learns that she must forgive – her father, her mother, the townspeople, and, most importantly, herself.

I found this a very compelling read. I was interested and engaged from beginning to end. That being said, there are some scenes which are difficult to read, because Quindlen is brutally honest about what it means to be a caregiver to a terminally ill loved one. Several scenes reminded me of my own efforts to help my mother when she was still at home; her Alzheimer’s having progressed to where she needed constant attention to ensure her safety. Kate’s behavior mirrored my own mother’s resistance to being helped – because she did NOT want to be thought helpless. She had always been the caregiver, she did not want to be the one being cared for. show less

I have this thing about very popular books--I tend to avoid what everybody else is raving about. Sometimes I'm utterly wrong.

I should have read and appreciated One True Thing years ago. Anna Quinlen is adept at conveying the truth about ambivalence, even with people you love the most dearly. In this story, I found all the ambivalence I felt about taking care of my own mother as she was aging and dying. She tells the truth. Quinlen's writing is superb, her characters have depth and are interesting people. There's everything in there about how, even when you love your parent, you want to have your own life, too. Wonderful book. I'll be going on an Anna Quindlen binge soon.

I'm not really sure why I wanted to read this book. The movie trailer has been putting me off from reading it for years. I never had any interest in reading it, or seeing the movie... but then it showed up in my library's ebook collection, so I checked it out. And then didn't put my ereader down except for essentials like sleeping and cooking dinner for a day and a half.

These days, stories about adults who return home to take care of their ill parents are fairly common, but I've never read one as heart-wrenching as this one. For such a quiet novel, there are a million things going on all at once, and all of them keep driving the story forward. I just loved it. I'm going to have to buy a copy so I can read it once a year.

I've never really wanted to read this book, mainly because I thought the trailer for the movie looked so incredibly stupid. I know, I know. I'm not even really sure where the recommendation to read it came from this time; I think it showed up in the "new ebooks" section on my library's website a couple of months ago and I slapped a request on it without really thinking, so when I got the notice that it was available I went ahead and checked it out. And I loved it. It reminded me of the women's fiction I used to like to read in the 80s and 90s, about the time this book was published--the kind of thing my book group used to read. I stayed up way too late for a couple of days in a row. My family couldn't pry my Nook away from me.

I didn't show more like the characters much, except for the mother and one of the brothers (although I had a hard time telling the brothers apart; maybe that was the point). I think that actually made it a more effective story; it's easy to read about relationships between likable people. The ones between people who aren't necessarily very likable are more interesting. I loved the way Quindlen explored the dynamic between parents and their adult children, and what happens when their respective roles change--it was like probing an achy tooth with your tongue. It hurts, but you just... can't... stop. show less

One True Thing could have easily been maudlin and sentimental, but it wasn't. The story of Ellen Gulden finding herself through the crucible of caring for her mother with terminal cancer, dealing with the emotionally unavailable father she once adored, and being accused of giving her mother a killing dose of morphine was emotional, yet tenderly written. For me the books' main theme was about thinking one knows one true thing and then finding out that thing isn't true at all. Very thought provoking.

En bra bok, jag fastnade direkt i inledningen men sedan fick jag svårt att komma in i handlingen, men när jag väl gjorde det så var jag fast.. Intressant att läsa beskrivningar om hur cancer tränger in sig i en familj och därför allt det som är bra.. Man börjar se på cancer som ett levande monster som äter på sitt offer och , släpper ut giftiga gaser som tränger in i resten av familjen och förmörkar deras inre