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One True Thing: Love What You Have
by Anna Quindlen
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Dell Publishing Company, Inc. (1995-09-01)
ISBN: 044022103X
EAN: 9780440221036
Dewey Decimal #: 813.54
Mass Market Paperback: 387 pages
Edition: 1st
Release Date: 1995-08-01
SKU: 1315
Condition: Very Good
Comments: Binding: Softcover. Condition: Very Good.
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Editorial Reviews
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Amazon.com
One True Thing is a film starring Meryl Streep as the cancer-stricken homemaker mother, Renee Zellweger as the daughter who quits her top-dog job to care for her, and William Hurt as the chilly professor who lets the women in the family do the heavy emotional lifting dying requires. But the real star of the project remains former New York Times everyday-life columnist Anna Quindlen, who quit her top-dog job to write novels (and who took time off from college to nurse her own dying mother). Quindlen hit a nerve with One True Thing, which captures an experience seldom dealt with in popular culture. (One exception: the sensitive 1996 film with Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio of the play Marvin's Room.) Though the heroine of One True Thing, 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
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Product Description
A mother. A daughter. A shattering choice.
From Anna Quindlen, bestselling author of Black and Blue, comes a novel of life, love and everyday acts of mercy.
"A triumph."
--San Francisco Chronicle
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Customer Reviews
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Great story...
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-06-09
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It was so well written and engaging that I couldn't put it down nor did I want it to end.
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On True Thing
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-02-12
This is one of my new favorite books. After seeing the movie (starring Meryl Streep) I was intrigued to get more "invovled" with her character. The book did not disappoint in the least. Great read.
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Out of all of the ways I have tried to deal with my father's death, reading this book was the most therapeutic
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-08-02
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book was so therapeutic to me after losing my father to cancer 8 years ago. It brought back so many memories, but it really hit the nail on the head when it talks about the"dying with dignity" issue. My father was so well known in the community, and such a pillar of strength to us family members, that none of us really knew how to deal with the fact that we now had to be the pillars of strength for him. It is hard to see how debilitating cancer can be on a loved one, but nobody portrays this any better then Anna Quindlen did in this book. Try to imagine no longer having hair to comb, or having to be pushed around in a wheelchair, or what it must feel like to have to wear diapers....Those are issues that both sick people, and elderly people have to deal with. There is so much we take for granted when we are in good health. This book focuses on dealing with both the physical and mental issues involved with debilitating health, as well as the effect it has on the other family members. ]
This story centers around a couple in their late 40s stuggling to cope with the wife being diagnosed with cancer. Their children are already grown and out of the house when the oldest child, Ellen, has to give up her successful career to come home and care for her mother - mostly to appease her father. At first the daughter is very angry and focuses on what she had to give up, but along the way she realizes the many sacrifices that her mother gave just to be a good mother, a good wife, and a good citizen. During the duration of the book the mother and daughter bond like they never have before, and it makes you realize how important family really is. This is another "have a box of tissues near by" book, especially for those of you who lost a parent to cancer. This book is a MUST READ - and you will be glad you did.
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Tight, fluid, moving
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-07-18
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
A few things touched me especially deeply as I read this finely crafted novel by Anna Quindlen. One is how easily this situation could occur for any of us and second is the curiosity of how I would handle the situation and third is, how much do we really know about the innerworkings of the relationships of the people around us, even closest to us?
This novel of family, of life, of death and of choices surrounding life and death invites you into the intimate family circle of Ellen - an intelligent professional woman who goes home to a small college town to take care of her mother who is dying of cancer.
She comes to know both her parents in an entirely new way - bits and pieces of which we glean in the first sentence of the novel: "Jail is not as bad as you might imagine."
From that tightly wound first sentence all the way through, Quindlen's writing holds the reader captive. We want to know what is next. We want to be a part of the process. We want to understand. We don't want the ribbons to "go untied" although... well, you can find out for yourself when you read it... which I strongly suggest that you do.
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Very gripping, and layered book
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-07-03
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I checked this book out from the library with a vague recollection that it had been the basis for a movie a number of years back. Once I started reading it, I virtually devoured it- I was finished with it in less than three days. I kept in in my briefcase to read everytime I got a moment to do so.
This book is not just a story, it is many. It's a book about facing the deterioration of a loved one from a terminal illness. It's a study in family dynamics, as Ellen examines the relationship she's had with both of her parents during her life. It's a story of the debate about female archetypes, and how so much of society divides us into groups of "heart" vs. "mind". It's an illustration of the things we say and do, or what is said and done to us, resonates long after the action or words are gone- Ellen's high school essay, her boyfriend's mother issues, words taken out of context.
I watched the movie, as well, having found it by chance on cable while reading the novel. It was good and very touching, but was missing so many of the subtle layers that are present in the book. I'm glad I saw the film first, otherwise the absence of so many of the other explorations would have detracted from the film in my eyes.
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