Errands

by Judith Guest

Book Overview

As bestselling author of the critically acclaimed masterpiece, Ordinary People, Judith Guest knows the subtle rhythms of family life. With a perceptive eye that captures the nuanced relationships of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345409043
• ISBN13: 9780345409041
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 335 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The complexity of family life

Remember Ordinary People and it's stunning debut into the literary world? Well, here's author Judith Guest again with Errands, another great book about the complexity of family life. This time it's a young Midwestern family facing the death of the father. The family is so undone as their lives crumble that at times I was tempted to stop reading. If you are, too, gear up and stick with it; you'll be glad you did. Slowly, slowly, Guest allows us to watch their gradual return to a level or normalcy.Judith Guest has a particularly good ear for dialogue, and in this book she reveals this talent best when siblings are fighting.Great read.

Life's Errands

When so many novels scoot by on waves of glitz and style, Judith Guest's "Errands" moves slowly, deliberately through the daily life of a family in Michigan. There are no movie stars, power brokers or politicians here. The characters are, as her previous novel was titled, "ordinary people" living ordinary lives. The critical event of the novel is the fatal illness of Keith, husband to Annie and father to Harry, Jimmy and Julie. Annie is strong, so strong that she cannot let herself be taken under by the grief and anger that well up inside her. So she holds herself straight, takes a job, snaps at her children, and keeps going. Meanwhile, the children fall apart, each in his or her own way. Annie's sister, Jess, watches the family's ordeal. And she steps in when she is needed, while trying not to push too hard. She has her own problems, emotionally thrown by her intense love affair with a married man. In the hands of another writer, Annie would be a very unsympathetic character - cold and aloof, demanding from her children the same stoic strength she requires of herself. Yet Guest is able to show us the suffering inside Annie, and how she tortures herself more than anyone else as she tries to hold on to sanity in the only way she knows. This book is not a quick read, but a thoughtful, powerful and moving experience. The beauty of Guest's writing lies in her willingness to look at everyday life and accept it, believe in it. She shows that how we face and deal with the real challenges of life is what matters in the end.

A wonderful story!

I had first picked this book up at the library because we had to do an old-fashion book report in my Honors English class. I finsihed the book in three short days! The story was so amazing and such a tear-jerker. I hadn't cried over a book ever since Patricia Hermes' books. This books shows just how long it takes to get over grief. I loved that Ms. Guest wrote from the kids' as well as the widow's point of view. You really felt for every one of the characters. I recommended it to everyone I know.

the stages of grief described in a novel

This is the story of widow Annie Browner and her three children and the way they cope with the sudden death of their husband and father from a brain tumor. They have all the difficulties you would expect. The death benefits are not generous. The kids have school problems. Annie has not been employed for 14 years and suddenly must find a job. Relatives are unbelievably cruel. Yet there are a whole bunch of people out there cheering them on in a quiet way. While I have never dealt with the sort of grief the Browners go through, it seems as if all of those stages you read about are in this book. At the end, you get the feeling that they are through the worst stages and that life will, after all, be worth living for the Browners. A good read.

Multi-Kleenex read for Fall.

Judith Guest has once again, since "Ordinary People" wrapped grief around her readers and allowed them to actually feel what loss is like. I used to think I knew how death of a loved one would affect me, but now that I've read "Errands" I no longer can assume I'll know how to react. At first I thought that Annie the mother was a bitter and inflexible woman and did not truly love her children. However, as she tried to be everything to everyone - a mother, sister, daughter and good employee, I realized that she was only "acting" the roles in an effort to avoid the true grieving process. The children, unfortunately, suffered the most in this novel. Judith Guest's ability to take the reader into the minds of each different child helped one visualize in a more florid way the trauma that they endured. Annie was not an easy character to like; Harry, the oldest, made me want to reach out and help. Errands was a quick, easy read that brought you to tears yet warmed your heart