Summary:

To take care of Aunt Martha, a Mississippi family agrees to a cousin's moving in with her; cousin Howie then maneuvers the family into running a home for the elderly. Martha agrees because Lucas, a physician with whom she's had a long relationship, will come to live there. As more elders come and as they get sick, the methods (restraints, use of drugs, unclean conditions) of Howie and his hired staff become a threat to all.

Martha and Lucas are rendered powerless by their inability to make the family believe their side of the story; even Harper, the family's longtime African-American butler, cannot help. Because he fears that Howie will sedate both of them into oblivion, Lucas decides to burn the house down--after killing several of the "prisoners" first.

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Summary:

This mystery novel, set in Chicago, centers on a nursing home called The Larkspur. Chips Devlin is, after the death of his housekeeper, placed in The Larkspur by a relative. Chips has been a mentor to Jimmy Flannery, who tries to find out why Chips has been so hastily put there.

Nosing around through Chicago's political and public service offices. Jimmy calls in favors and hands them out in an effort to learn what's really going on at The Larkspur, the 3-story converted mansion with a big back yard (complete with duck pond). After an elderly man who Jimmy had asked to be a lookout is murdered, Jimmy kidnaps Chips from The Larkspur but can't keep himself from trying to help those that remain by solving the murder.

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Summary:

Ann Blake is a lonely, divorced, childless English teacher whose ninth grade class includes Karen, a girl who is dying of cancer ( probably lymphoma). As an adjunct to the medical treatment and prayer/faith healing that the child receives, Ann hopes that she might instill in Karen a purpose to live for, through her creative writing

The Infinite Dark refers to a story the students read during that school year, and the teacher ponders on what this phrase really means. She has assumed it means death, but, as Karen regains her health and moves on to another grade and forgets about Ann Blake, Ann realizes that for herself the infinite dark means being unconnected from others, being alone, not making an impact that is permanent--a sort of death in life. As the teacher tries to facilitate healing in the student she ironically realizes that she herself has known little about living her own life.

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Summary:

A pediatric intern encounters her first dying child. Her initial response is to care for the child, hold him, and try to comfort him. She is told by her attending physician that this behavior is unprofessional. When she cries in response to her stress and grief, she is told she will never be an effective physician. The narrator then describes how she ultimately came to terms with her impulse to cry at stressful times, and how she interacts with patients in her current practice.

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Summary:

The wife of a man dying of cancer takes him to Yosemite for one last visit before his death. During this trip she thinks about how her life has been changed, both by marriage and by her husband's illness. Yosemite represented a tradition for them where they vacationed with their children each year. As the narrator reflects on how her life will change after her husband's death, and on the needs she has suppressed over the years, Yosemite begins to represent a new kind of tradition for her which will give her nurturance in the future.

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Summary:

The author describes her experience of growing up with hearing loss. In this excerpt, she describes herself as a six year old orphan who is being raised by two aunts. Young Frances tries to hide her hearing loss from her aunts because she is afraid they will recognize that she is inferior or useless and get rid of her. She invents an invisible friend who chooses to hear what he wants to and who doesn't feel ashamed of this disability.

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Summary:

Mrs. Seaver writes about what it is like living in a nursing home. She writes cogently about the attitudes and behavior of staff, loneliness, lack of privacy, and her day to day experiences as a disabled 84 year old nursing home resident. The contrast between her former life and still-evident wit and intellect, and the way she is treated and diminished in her current environment is profound.

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Summary:

Fanny Gideon is having a tree house built just like the one she remembered from her childhood. The best times of her life were spent in that tree house and she hopes to recapture the clarity, joy, and freedom of her youth. The problem is that Fanny Gideon is 78 years old and has Alzheimer's disease.

She struggles on a daily basis with trying to fit into a life that she does not like, and with constraints that diminish her sense of herself. Her daughter is thinking about placing her in a nursing home. Mrs. Gideon almost burns down the house on a daily basis. The cleaning lady follows her around when her daughter is out of the house.

This story is about how an elderly woman and her now elderly childhood sweetheart attempt to recapture both their youth and their current lives against all odds. It is about preservation of the self despite memory loss, renewal of love in old age, and about rebellion.

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Summary:

This is the story of a family struggling to deal with the accidental death of a teenage son. Calvin Jarrett (Donald Sutherland) and his wife Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) and their surviving teenage son Conrad (Timothy Hutton) live in a wealthy Chicago suburb. Some months before the time of the film, Conrad's older brother Buck drowned when the small boat he and Conrad were sailing capsized in a windstorm.

In the present we see Beth as cold, withdrawn from Conrad (Buck had been her favorite) and at times actively hostile to him and to her husband, too. Conrad, recently back home from three months in the hospital (including electro-convulsive shock therapy) after slitting his wrists, is between uneasy and agonized in his high-school and family world. Calvin remains emotionally open but is befuddled and often caught between his wife and his son, talking about things that don't matter.

Within that setting, the film tells the story of Conrad's attempts to deal with the guilt he feels after his brother's death. A series of psychotherapy sessions with Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch) plays a crucial role. Seeing Dr. Berger also helps Cal understand some things, and when in a midnight confrontation he tells Beth of his sorrow that she has substantially changed for the worse, she proudly packs her bags and leaves. The film ends early the next morning, with Conrad and his father in an emotional embrace on the front steps of their home.

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Summary:

A strange Irish girl is "away" ever since she lay beside a drowned man. A teacher marries her, providing stability if not sanity, but the 1840s famines begin and the couple flee Ireland with their child Liam. They establish a homestead in a remote part of Ontario where a baby girl, Eileen, is born.

Not long after, the mother disappears and is not seen again for years until she is brought home dead. The son learns that she had been living by a lake immersed in her fantasies of the long dead lover. Eventually, Liam is left to care for his sister alone; they travel to a small port town where he realizes that Eileen has become an attractive young woman with desires of her own. She too goes "away" following a lover, but returns to Liam and his wife to live out her long and lonely life.

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