Tracy Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize for The Soul of a New Machine. House
and Among Schoolchildren were national bestsellers. Now this
"crackerjack reporter with a common touch" (Philip Lopate, The
Washington Post) has turned his talents to his most important and
universal theme in this, a close-in study of old age in America. With
care and exactitude, with the human compassion and humor for which he is
famed, Kidder opens up a fascinating world to us that is, at the same
time, foreign and compelling. The narrative takes place entirely in a
nursing home and focuses on two old men struggling with their
circumstances, their memories, and their mortality.