 
As We Are Now: A Novel
Average Rating: 4.5 Total Reviews: 11
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 On: 2008-08-18
This is not a new book or a cheerful one. When it was first published, I was not aware of it, nor would I have been interested then, more than thirty years ago when I was in my early forties.
This is a book that should still be read by anyone involved in or concerned about the care and treatment of elders and by any senior citizen who dares to explore what wasting away in an old-style nursing home might have been like for a thoughful, sensitive old woman. We can hope that senior care has improved, but somehow, this little 133-page novel still rings true and stirs understanding and concern.
This fictional journal follows 76-year-old Caroline (Caro) Spencer, who, after a heart attack, is placed in Twin Elms, a small, isolated rural nursing home, by her older brother, who cant care for her. Shes a former teacher and rugged individualist. She remembers and admires a non-conformist gay college professor aunt. She dreams about a long-ago lover. She never married.
Her fellow Twin Elms residents are elderly men, mostly demented and hopeless, relegated to a shared charity ward. Caro is happy to have her own room. Her perceived enemy is Harriet, the owner and chief caregiver, who seems to treat her harshly and strive to remove all remaining shreds of dignity, or at least thats how it seems to Caro. "I am in a concentration camp for the old, a place where people dump their parents or relatives exactly as though it were an ash can," she writes two weeks after arriving.
What interests me most in this book are the things that have meaning and the power to relieve Caros depression, at least temporarily: music, poetry, the rural view from the window and occasional opportunities to venture outside, the cat who isnt allowed in, but sometimes creeps into her bed, and most of all, three people who offer hope and kindness. They are a minister, his college-age daughter, and Anna, Harriets temporary replacement as a caregiver.
Caroline finds comfort in these things and people, but her most reliable sources of hope are her secret journal and her plan to destroy her "prison." Is she driven to madness? Perhaps, but somehow her ultimate protest makes sense.
We can hope that places like Twin Elms and caregivers like Harriet do not exist, but there are lessons here: the importance of human understanding, kindness, and listening to elders; the need to allow old people pets and their favorite possessions; the importance of personal writing.
This book reminds us of the inevitability of aging and death and the immensity of the caregiving responsibility.
 On: 2008-08-17
I first read this novel in college for a sociology class. Some 20+ years later, Ive just re-read -- and re-discovered -- the power and timelessness of May Sartons writing.
What I originally thought was a novel about elder abuse and the indignities of old age, I now recognize is a much deeper narrative of love and loss, hope for renewal, and ultimately rage and revenge. It is a short novel, but packed with insights that stay with you for a long time.
Definitely well worth reading.
On: 2008-02-06
A searing look at the hopelessness of despair, loneliness and old age, May Sartons As We Are Now is a powerful study of a womans resolve to relinquish herself by any means possible from the depths of the anger and anguish she feels from her surroundings. Told through the journals of Caro Spencer who has moved into a "home," not due to a lack of mental strength but of a physical frailty that leaves her unable to live alone. She keeps the journals at first as a record of her days as she fears she is losing her memory, but later the journals become a record of the mistreatment that she and the other "inmates" must endure at the hands of the two women who run the home. Told over the course of several months, this is the story of one womans battle against age and the carelessness that the elderly can be treated with.
Its a powerful book, told quickly and to the point, and there are times that you forget you are reading a novel and feel like you are being given a first-hand account of a womans battle against her keepers. I found myself feeling hopeless as there should be something that I could do to help ease her suffering, but then I would need to remind myself that this is a novel. One of Sartons more powerful works.
On: 2007-11-23
This was my first experience with May Sarton, and I was fully impressed with her writing. Her main character, Caroline Spencer, is a heart-breaking gem. I wanted to take her into my home, like Evelyn with Mrs. Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. As We Are Now is written in the form of a journal kept by a woman consigned to a "home" after a heart attack makes her unable to live alone any longer. Initially, she keeps the journal to fight her fear of losing her memory and her mind in what she refers to as a "concentration camp for the old". This is no institution, but a large house run by two women; Miss Spencer is the only female "guest" among a number of mainly somnolent men. From the beginning she cautions herself against hope, "the most dangerous emotion", but nevertheless strives to maintain her sense of self in a terminally dehumanizing situation.
It took some courage to finish the book, because very little good stuff happens, and how it will all end is fairly clear about half way through. But I am very glad I read it, and I think everyone should. We all have aging relatives, and we all will be old one day if we live long enough. An emotionally difficult subject, artfully handled
On: 2007-02-21
This was a real eye opener. It really makes one think if there are really nursing homes that would treat their patients the way Caro and the others were treated. Caro was a very strong willed woman who refused to give in the daily humiliation brought on by Harriet and Rose the owners. In the end she may have gotten her revenge, but at what price?
 On: 2002-12-31
I like Sartons character, Caroline Spencer. I wanted to rush in and bring her to my home. This book brings to light the humiliations of our Seniors and I really wanted this story to enlighten me. It actually made me very sad.It was a very easy and fast read (only about 130 pages long) and it was so nice to get to know "Miss Spencer". This book should remind us that our aged are intelligent, and have feelings, and deserve to be treated with respect. I am thankful for that aspect of the novel. I give it a 3, only because I found I was so saddened by the suject. Perhaps I should score it higher, as a testament to Sartons wonderful writing and believability.
On: 2002-03-11
Caroline Spencer is an aging schoolteacher who gets placed in a caregivers home by her family. She is soon faced with the fact that her caregiver Harriet Hatfield is not unlike a jailer, though she probably means well. Caro is subjected daily to petty cruelties and subtle humiliations, and she almost succumbs to actually taking the tranquilizers shes brought. She keeps a journal to retain her faculties and as a last defense against infirmity. When a married woman temporarily helps out around the home, Caro learns the true nature of love, late in her life. Harriet finds Caros journal and nearly destroys Caros morale, but this only drives Caro into a last act of defiance and release. This is the second Sarton book Ive read; the first being "Mrs Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing" (#95 of the 100 Best Lesbian & Gay Novels). Her writing is superb and so beautiful. "As We Are Now" is her indictment against the treatment of the elderly and a brilliant book about growing old and struggling to cling to the world. Kate Milletts memoir "Mother Millett" also deals with the treatment of the elderly in this country, and its sad to see that it hasnt changed much.
On: 2002-03-09
I have long admired May Sartons willingness to tackle tough subjects that deal with the inner reality of her characters as they face issues or things about themselves that are not always pleasant. One of my favorite works for example is A Reckoning, in which a woman comes to terms with her own premature dying. Here in As We Are Now, however, Sarton pushes past even her own limits to probe an issue that festers behind the scenes of our youth-obsessed culture - the relegation of the elderly to rest homes, nursing facilities and sanitariums; any place in short where the rest of society doesnt have to see or think about them. What makes Sartons book such an achievement is how she is able to depict the sordidness and relentless oppression experienced by her main character Caro, while infusing her at the same time with a dignity and strength of character that transcends the worst the situation can dish out. The triumph of the novel is that in the end, we come to see Caro not as an elderly woman, but as a woman infused with a light of her own making.The story begins with Caro being placed in a rest home by her older brother. Caro has had a heart attack and can no longer live in her own home, and the older brothers younger wife cant handle having Caro live with them. Unfortunately, or perhaps predictably, the rest home is little more than a holding tank where the residents are treated like mentally deficient children, and any attempt to buck the system results in punishment. The most disturbing aspect of the whole thing, however, is that Caro is perceptive, bright and very much alive. A former teacher with students who still write her, she reads and studies poetry, observes and comments astutely on her fellow residents, and replays her favorite music in her mind to keep herself busy. As a reader you want someone to do something, for some long lost relative to appear, a former student to offer a haven, or the visiting minister to report the abominable conditions. Only slowly do you, like Caro, become resigned to the fact that this is what happens to the elderly in our society, and come to realize that the only escape will forged within and by herself. That Sarton has managed to give her character dignity, that the novel stands as a testament to the strength and beauty of the human spirit rather than a condemnation of society, is remarkable. This book should be read by anyone who has or will be faced with the issue of aging - in other words by everyone.
On: 2002-01-21
May Sartons protrayal of an elderly schoolteacher entering a nursing home, stripped of her dignity and privacy is heartwrenching. I loved the book and found myself questioning the way we ignore our aging population. The author pointed out that people spend years in nursing homes and become shells of what they were. They retreat into despair and decline only because they are ignored from others. It is so sad and yet there is so much truth to the way we shune our elderly population
On: 2002-01-20
May Sartons protrayal of an elderly schoolteacher entering a nursing home, stripped of her dignity and privacy is heartwrenching. I loved the book and found myself questioning the way we ignore our aging population. The author pointed out that people spend years in nursing homes and become shells of what they were. They retreat into despair and decline only because they are ignored from others. It is so sad and yet there is so much truth to the way we shune our elderly population
On: 2000-05-28
....how easy it has become to demonize the elderly, whom too often we shut away in sanitary "homes" where we wont have to have a relationship with them. This novel takes a common scenario to the extreme and by doing so poses questions about why we see (or fail to see) the elderly as we do...
On: 1999-04-02
This novel tells the story of neglect and rejection of one elderly person-Caroline Spencer. Spencer is left in a rest home by her brother and callous sister in law. She commits to writing her cruel experiences in a journal. She reflects of how she lived her life and contemplates on the harsh and humiliating treatment that the nursing staff give the elderly in the home. She displays rightous indignation at the neglect and callous treatment on the elderly by the nursing staff and by society at large. This novel makes the reader realize how much society has neglected our elderly and basically abandoned our elderly love ones. Sarton writes with great skill. The novel has a powerful and meaningful ending that will make you think and reflect on the worth of quality care for the elderly and of life itself.
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