Yes, a nurse could be hired, but the professordoesn't want a nurse poking around the house and disturbing his routine. The family's younger brother, Brian ( Tom EverettScott), must stay in school. He, of course, is too busy withmidterms to take care of Kate. “You can work as afree-lancer from home,” the professor says, clearly not convinced that whateverhis daughter has can be described as a career. All of this begins tomatter in the next months, as it develops that Kate has cancer, and George wantshis daughter to move back home and take care of her.īut. He thinks he's a big shot, and she buys it.Įllen's hurt, we see, comes because her father, whom sheadmires, does not sufficiently show his love for her-while her mother, of whomshe disapproves, has a love that is therefore unwelcome. Ellen should be able to feela certain contempt for her father for even using such a ploy, but she isblinded by his tweeds, his National Book Award, his seminars, his whole edificeof importance.

EventuallyEllen gets a chance to ask her dad about her latest magazine article, which hehas read and, “writer to writer,” thinks should be “more muscular.” Later hemuses, “When I was 20 and working at the New Yorker, I would spend a whole dayworking on a single sentence.” That's the kind of statement that deserves pityrather than respect if it is true, then to meet his deadlines he must have hadto dash off his other sentences in heedless haste. She comes home to upstate New York for a surprise birthday partyfor her father, a professor named George ( William Hurt), and is not surprisedto see her mother, Kate ( Meryl Streep), prancing around the house dressed likeDorothy in “ The Wizard of Oz.” Yes, it's a costume party, but Kate is the kindof woman who can find costumes like that right in her own closet.

The one thing book summary