In One True Thing, the second novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen, Ellen Gulden is an up-and-coming journalist in New York City. At age 24, she is still trying to impress her erudite and demanding father, a college English professor. She has never really related to her mother, Kate, a conscientious homemaker. "My father always jazzed me up; my mother always calmed me down," she recalls.
Ellen's character is tested after she gives up her job and returns home to be a nurse for her mother who is dying of cancer. Thrown together in adverse circumstances these two are uneasy with each other.
Kate sets up a project which consists of reading a few literary classics. For the first time, Ellen comes to see and respect her mother's mind. At the same time, cooking, cleaning, and caring for Kate puts the cerebral Ellen on a path of heart. She is tutored in the art of compassion and empathy by Teresa, a nurse who is hired to monitor Kate's vital signs.
Abandoned by her husband who can't deal with her dying, Kate speaks freely and intimately with her daughter about life, love, and regret. For Ellen, being there for her mother becomes a crucial step in her own journey toward wholeness. A final hurdle comes when she is accused of administering an overdose of morphine to Kate in order to ease her suffering.
"Our parents," writes Quindlen, "are never people to us. Never. They're always character traits, Achilles' heels, dim nightmares, vocal tics, bad noses, hot tears, all handed down and us stuck with them." Readers of One True Thing will want to revisit the myths and meanings they have constructed around their parents. Our task is to look into the souls of these people who have brought us into their world and bequeathed to us their blessings and their burdens. Doing so for Ellen is a life-transforming experience. We can follow her model if, first, we see with the eyes of our hearts.