Helpful Score: 1
"I was impressed by the intelligence, depth, and power of this novel. Sue Miller has succeeded here in spinning a tale that makes real many issues...including dealing with an aging parent, the raw edges that inevitably surround familial relationships, the doubts that so many of us develop in midlife about ourselves, our successes and failures, and on and on." amazon
Helpful Score: 1
Very good book about what Miller does best - the intricacies of family relationships. The story kept me interested, and I loved the characters.
It took a while for me to get "into" this book but then I had to see how Lily's memories differed from her sons - - I think Alan understood his mother better by the end of this book, I just wish it had happened sooner.
abridged
Abridged/2 Cassettes/Approx 3 hours.
The moving story of a mother and son that touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life
Lily Maynard is proud, chilly, difficult, and has become a famous writer at age seventy-two. Now, stricken with Parkinson's disease and staying with her architect son Alan, Lily must cope with her fading powers as well as with disturbing memories of the events that estranged her from her children and ended her marriage. For Alan, her visit raises old questions about his relationship with her, about the choices he has made in his own life, and about the nature of love, disappointment, and grief. Profound and moving, The Distinguished Guest reveals a family trying to understand the meaning of its life together, while confronting inevitable loss and the vision of an immeasurably altered future.
The moving story of a mother and son that touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life
Lily Maynard is proud, chilly, difficult, and has become a famous writer at age seventy-two. Now, stricken with Parkinson's disease and staying with her architect son Alan, Lily must cope with her fading powers as well as with disturbing memories of the events that estranged her from her children and ended her marriage. For Alan, her visit raises old questions about his relationship with her, about the choices he has made in his own life, and about the nature of love, disappointment, and grief. Profound and moving, The Distinguished Guest reveals a family trying to understand the meaning of its life together, while confronting inevitable loss and the vision of an immeasurably altered future.
Fabulous author telling the story about an elderly lady and her life with Parkinson's Disease. Very moving story you will be sure to enjoy.
This is a great story about an aging feminist author with Parkinson's Disease at the time she moves into her estranged son's home. The book explores the complex relationships of the aging parent, the middle aged children, and their college aged children. It is a must read for anyone in the "sandwich generation" faced with caring for aging parents and not quite grown children at the same time.
I loved this book and read all of Sue Miller,s books. It is a study of human behavior, and how one observes the changes in a loved one as they age. Interesting and a true learning experience, with entertaining nuances. I totally enjoyed every word.
It was not the best fiction I have ever read, but it was informative in unexpected ways. My being closer to the age of the guest herself, it was enlightening how the younger generation viewed what I would consider standard moral behaviors and just what one did because it was the right thing to do and how unfair the writer's generation was with their judgments of how it sooo affected them. Certainly they were privileged with education and a freedom that was not afforded nor expected in this reader's era. I would not care to read anything else from this writer.
Lily Maynard is proud, chilly, difficult, and has become a famous writer at age 72. Now, stricken with Parkinson's disease and staying with her architect son, Alan, Lily must cope with her fading powers as well as with disturbing memories of the events that estranged her from her children and ended her marriage. For Alan, her visit raises old questions about his relationship to her, about the choices he has made in his own life, and about the nature of love, disappointment, and grief.
At 72 and ill,after a very fruitful life as a famous writer, Lily has to deal with what she gave up for her fame...her children and her marriage...
"As in the work of Jane Austen...Sue Miller's tale of a proud, elderly woman who visits and bedevils her son...is genuinely adult fiction." (back of book)
I could not get interested in this book
