Errands

2 cassettes / 3 hours
Read by Cherry Jones

As bestselling author of the critically acclaimed masterpiece Ordinary People, Judith Guest knows the subtle rhythms of family life.  Now, in her luminous new novel, Errands, Guest once again gives us an unforgettable family that finds the fabric of their lives unraveling.

Keith, Annie's husband of 17 years, is dying of cancer. It is a fate he has accepted.  Annie however cannot, will not accept it.  And, after Keith's death, she finds her entire world turned upside down.

Consumed with grief, mounting bills, everyday tasks that seem insurmountable, and three kids that have become nagging source of frustration, Annie fails to see that the family is beginning to come apart.  It takes a second threatening event to transform both the children and Annie, teaching them that, even with the loss of Keith, they are still a family - a different family, but one that is no less loving, real, and enduring than they had been with a father and husband in the house.

Searing in its depiction of despair, warm in its evocation of family and the fragile ties that bind them, and tempered with gentle humor and dazzling wit, Errands is nothing less than a triumph.  Judith Guest strikes at the very core of loss and has written her most extraordinary novel to date.