Judith guest biography

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Judith Guest is an American novelist born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936. She studied English and psychology at the University of Michigan, and these two areas of study come heavily into play throughout her book, Ordinary People.

Guest’s novel focuses on the Jarrett family whose eldest son, Buck, has recently died on a sailing trip. Distraught by this sudden death, the other Jarrett son, Conrad, attempts suicide and is subsequently admitted into a mental hospital. After only a few months, Conrad is released from psychiatric care and sent back to live with his parents. The book explores the aftermath of these tragic incidents and how the Jarretts cope with their loss. Guest honed in on the science of depression because she hoped to depict “how it works and why it happens to people; how you can go from being down but able to handle it, to being so down that you don’t even want to handle it, and then taking a radical step with your life — trying to commit suicide — and failing at that, coming back to the world and having to act normal when, in fact, you have been forever changed.”

Guest originally planned to write Ordinary People as a short story, but her deep attachment to these characters urged her to expand upon the story even further. Finishing this novel was no simple task as she quit her teaching job in order to fully concentrate on completing the book. Once she was completed with the novel, Guest sent it to two publishers, both of whom rejected the manuscript. The third publisher that reviewed Ordinary People, Viking Press, ultimately bought the rights to Guest’s work.

While the novel was received well by the public, Ordinary People’s greatest legacy derives from its film adaptation, d

American novelist and screenwriter (born 1936)

Judith Guest (born March 29, 1936) is an American novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Detroit, Michigan and is the great-niece of Poet LaureateEdgar Guest (1881–1959). She is a recipient of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize.

Early life

Guest attended Detroit's Mumford High School in 1951. When her family moved to Royal Oak, she transferred to Royal Oak High School; she graduated in 1954. Guest then studied English and psychology at the University of Michigan. She was also a member of Sigma Kappa sorority. Guest graduated with a BA in education.

Career

Guest taught at a public school for several years before deciding to work full-time completing a novel.

Guest's first book, Ordinary People, published in 1976, was the basis of the 1980 filmOrdinary People that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This novel and two others, Second Heaven (1982) and Errands (1997), are about adolescents forced to deal with crises in their families. Guest also wrote the screenplay for the 1987 film Rachel River.

Guest co-authored the mystery Killing Time in St. Cloud (1988) with novelist Rebecca Hill. Guest's most recent book, The Tarnished Eye (2004), is loosely based on a real unsolved crime in her native Michigan.

Personal life

Guest was married for nearly 50 years to her college sweetheart, businessman Larry LaVercombe (1936-2009). Guest, her three sons, and their families, reside in Edina, Minnesota.

Bibliography

References

External links

Guest, Judith

ISBN: 0670528315
New York, NY: Viking Press, 1976. First Edition; Fifth Printing. Hardcover. Inscribed, signed & dated in year of publication by Judith Guest. "Once in a great while a first novel comes along that arouses tremendous excitement in a publishing house, not only because of its excellence but also because it seems to herald an important new writer and promise good things to come. Ordinary People is such a novel: championed by a dozen Viking readers since its arrival in the general mail, it has a depth and an absolute sureness of touch that distinguish it from scores of first efforts. It is the story of seventeen-year-old Conrad Jarrett, just returned home from eight months in a mental institution after a suicide attempt. Before he left the hospital he was filled with hope and confidence that everything was finally back to normal. Now, at home, that confidence has vanished, and he is shaken by the reallization that his old definition of normality no longer applies...His parents, too, find nothing in the past to help them deal with this troubled present. Ordinary people- they have always thought of themselves that way and now feel powerless in the face of such extraordinary circumstances. A once-unified family splits into three guarded, isolated members, sharing, it seems, only their dread of some unnamed, explosive thing they all sense in their midst." (from front flap) The now-classic debut novel by Judith Guest (b. 1936), the acclaimed Detroit-born American novelist who is a graduate of the University of Michigan here in Ann Arbor, & who is related to the great British-born American "People's Poet" Edgar Guest (1881-1959). This very popular novel was the basis for the celebrated 1980 film version starring Timothy Hutton as Conrad Jarrett, Mary Tyler Moore & Donald Sutherland as his mother & father, & Judd Hirsch as the psychiatrist who helps the Jarretts face the source of their malaise: The de

Judith Guest
1976

Introduction

In 1976, Judith Guest's Ordinary People became the first unsolicited manuscript published by Viking Press in twenty-six years. Since then the popularity of the novel has remained undiminished. It is read by adults and teenagers alike for its sensitive characterizations of the troubled teenager Conrad Jarrett and his confused father, Calvin. The story of a teenaged boy's journey back from a suicide attempt after his older brother's death in a boating accident, and the grief and guilt that tear the Jarretts apart, Ordinary People was an instant best-seller. It was also made into an award-winning film. Guest's themes of alienation, the search for identity, and coming of age were timely ones, as the 1970s saw a trend toward self-discovery. Thus, psychology plays a key role in the novel, as young Conrad learns to express rather than repress his emotions with the help of a psychiatrist, while his mother's inability to confront her feelings leads her to leave her husband and son. Judith Guest has been especially praised for her insight into the feelings and experiences of her adolescent male protagonist, Conrad Jarrett, as well as for her ear for dialogue. Some critics have found Guest's emphasis on surrendering control ironic, as the style of the novel is tightly controlled, though unconventional, with its shifts between the perspectives of Calvin and Conrad Jarrett. Critics have also found that Guest's ending is too contrived; the troubled relationship between Conrad and his mother is resolved through the healing power of love, even though the two are not in contact with each other. Nevertheless, OrdinaryPeople, with its universal insights into the grief process and the relationships between family members and its sensitive and realistic portrayals of its