A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America

by Dudley Clendinen

Book Overview

An "affectionate, touchingly empathetic" (Janet Maslin, The New York Times) look at old age in America today Welcome to Canterbury Tower, an apartment building in Florida, where the residents are busy... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670018848
• ISBN13: 9780670018840
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A great book for anyone with an aging parent

I loved this book! Full disclosure, my mother lives at Canterbury and is mentioned in the book, but I love it for its gentle insight and sweet profundity about the aging process. Boomers with older parents are beginning to realize that we must pay attention and look at aging with new eyes and this books helps us do that. Instead of looking away, this lovely set of profiles helps us face aging and look it right in the eye. I seriously recommend this fine piece of writing. And I recommend Canterbury to anyone who is ready to retire to a caring place with grace and dignity. Thank you, Dudley, for a warm tribute to the place and those who live there.

A must read for anyone with aging parents

This is a marvelous book. Beautifully written and extremely poignant. Being a southerner myself, I didn't find the dialect annoying. It was spot on. As Linda Ellerbee said on the dust jacket, I want to give a copy of this book to all of my friends and family. I laughed, cried and hated for it to end.

A poignant "coming of age" story

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and in fact read it in the span of a little under a week - I couldn't put it down. Many books have been written about the transition from childhood to adolescence, but the transition from adulthood to what the author (or the publisher's marketing people) call "the new old age" has been pretty much ignored. The author describes his mother's life at Canterbury Tower, a high-rise retirement community in Tampa, Florida overlooking Tampa Bay. Clendinen's writing style reminds me of John Berendt, author of "Midnight in the Garden Between Good and Evil." He portrays the characters of Canterbury (and in this book there are many characters!) with sensitivity and humor. Referring to themselves as "the inmates" because 99% of them will never leave Canterbury voluntarily, these members of what Tom Brokaw called "the greatest generation" deal with a variety of maladies associated with growing older interspersed with dancing, plays, field trips outside of Canterbury, and life's daily events. Moving into a community like Canterbury, as so many elderly are doing on a daily basis, involves a lot of emotions - letting go of many possessions to fit into a 900 sq foot apartment - and also relinquishing a measure of independence. Clendinen portrays this struggle through a variety of characters whom we became close to in his time with his mother at Canterbury. They laugh, they cry, they live. They make comments like "When you get older, you learn not to buy anything that will last more than two weeks -- because *you* might not." Clendinen also portrays southern culture and Tampa's old society well...from the requirement that residents dress for dinner to the understanding that politics and religion are subjects best discussed behind closed doors, if at all. The only time that Clendinen stumbles is in reproducing the vernacular of the residents, whether it be southern ("Ohhh, Ah knowah") or Vietnamese or the especially frightening Spanish ("Ah'ma sorreh, Missus Rubio, butta you haffta tah come down anna mooffah your cahr" which reminded me too much of Father Guido Sarducci on Saturday Night Live years ago. However this minor flaw comes from Clendinen's desire to portray every nuance of his characters - and by the end of the book, you feel you know these people. I was able to relate to this book because my own father moved into Canterbury after Clendinen's mother passed away. We dealt with many of the struggles portrayed in the book as he moved from his home, leaving behind his memories of his time with his cherished wife, and adjusted to life at Canterbury. (I have never met the author.) This book is a quick read, filled with humor and heartwarming moments. Clendinen captures a very unique time and place -- a Place Called Canterbury.

an extremely perceptive book, and with some humor.

a must read for baby boomers and beyond. in fact, a must for all who anticipate out living their parents.

Charming, funny, sad, beautiful story.

This is a beautifully written love story....a love story between mother and son. Along the way we meet a group of interesting, eccentric and complex geriatric personalities. The author does a wonderful job of describing the emotions experienced while slowly losing his mother to several devastating strokes. If you want to laugh, cry, and be moved, read this story, then hug your parents and your children.