Ordinary people on any street where you live, people you might know, people you'll know better at the end of this straight, unassuming, encroaching first novel [Ordinary People]. A family, or what's left of it—the Jarretts, after the circumstantial whim which took the life of their eldest boy in a boating accident and left Conrad, less "perfect," but much nicer with Judith (Ann) Guest 1936– © Thomas Victor 1984a sense of guilt he couldn't shake and still can't, even after trying to commit suicide, hospitalization, and now his return home. Home being the place where you keep your distance—from an indifferent, inaccessible mother and perhaps a too protective father who have to come to terms with other difficulties. This finds Conrad attempting to deal with everyone's unease, particularly his own…. This has none of the sentimental over-indulgence of [Hannah Green's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden], the...