num_pages: 134
description: "I am not mad, only old. . . . I am in a concentration camp for the old." So begins May Sarton's short, swift blow of a novel, about the powerlessness of the old and the rage it can bring. As We Are Now tells the story of Caroline Spencer, a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher, mentally strong but physically frail, who has been moved by relatives into a "home." Subjected to subtle humiliations and petty cruelties, sustained for too short a time by the love of another person, she fights back with all she has, and in a powerful climax wins a terrible victory.
language: English
title: As We Are Now
titlecomplete: As We Are Now
characters: Standish Flint, Richard Thornhill, John Spencer, Ginny Spencer, Anna Close, Lisa Thornhill, Caroline Spencer, Rose Hatfield, Harriet Hatfield
genres: Family, Fiction, The United States Of America, Womens, Novella, Death, Literary Fiction, College, Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 1077
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company