One True Thing - Softcover

Quindlen, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044022103X ISBN 13: 9780440221036

Publisher: Dell Pub Co, 1995

Synopsis

The basis of a 1998 motion picture starring Meryl Streep and William Hurt, a New York Times best-seller features a young woman wrongly imprisoned for the mercy killing of her mother. Reissue. Movie tie-in.

About this title

Review:

Quindlen hits a nerve with One True Thing, which captures an experience seldom dealt with in popular culture. Though the heroine, Ellen Gulden, is a golden girl with two brothers who'll lose her career the instant she steps off the fast track, society concurs with her dad, who says, "It seems to me another woman is what's wanted here."

The book is a mother-daughter tale that should please fans of, say, The Joy Luck Club. It's not flashy, but it has a deep feel for the way children often discover, just before it's too late, who their parents really are. "Our parents are never people to us," Ellen writes, "they're always character traits.... There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat." The mercy-killing subplot isn't gripping, but the palpable sense of deepening family intimacy certainly is. --Tim Appelo

Review:

"A very good novel indeed - the relationship between mother and daughter is a triumph. This novel deserves to be bought, read and kept." (Elizabeth Jane Howard)

"One True Thing is so uncomprimising in its portrait of life and death, so honest in its rendering of love and loss, that it is simply impossible to forget." (Alice Hoffman)

"Quindlen's extraordinary moving novel is about family responsibilities, compassion, and growing up." (Daily Mail)

"Not a word or an emotion is out of place." (Sunday Times)

"...a brave and beautiful book." (The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell Pub Co
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 044022103X
• ISBN 13: 9780440221036
• Binding: Paperback