Dec 31, 2009

Ordinary People | Critical Overview

Critical response to Ordinary People has been mixed. Reviewers have found much to praise and much to criticize in Guest's novel. Many have found her characterization of Conrad Jarrett, the alienated teenager just released from a mental hospital, the most impressive aspect of the novel. Lore Dickstein writes in the New York Times Book Review that "Guest portrays Conrad not only as if she has lived with him on a daily basis—which I sense may be true—but as if she has gotten into his head. The dialogue Conrad has with himself, his psychiatrist, his friends, his...