The Distinguished Guest
How does an author tackle the issue of aging, so as to incorporate a generation's responsibility, a family's loss, and a person's life reflections? Miller deftly works through these issues in this story of famous writer Lily Maynard's battle with Parkinson's disease. When she moves in with her son Alan and his wife Gaby, their lives are irrevocably altered. In addition to the tedium of Lily's daily care and the interruption of their troubled marital relationship, they must bear witness to the loss of her craft, not just the physical act of writing, but her mental acuity, her ability to imagine and relate. With a director's eye for movement and angles of perception, Miller unreels the story like celluloid on screen. One has the overall sense of witnessing a cinematic dinner party where much is discussed and not discussed, where we are privy to characters' internal thoughts and perceptions as well as external conversations, where the focus of the lens--or narrator--shifts fluidly from person to person, creating an insightful representation of relationships, with their judgments, miscommunications, and tenuous connections. As other characters enter the scene with their probing questions and depart, what is created and destroyed, what is shared and withheld, and what is revised and protected is memory, a prime motivator for living and an often unwelcome, but revelatory, guest in the process of grieving.Janet St. John--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.