In Ordinary People by Judith Guest, Guest takes an extraordinary family and makes them seem ordinary. Using the title, Ordinary People, Guest causes the reader to question outrageous situations with a sense of normalcy. It makes situations seem like a typical part of life. But the irony of the title is that, because of the obstacles the Jarrett family has faced, they are no longer ordinary people. They are extraordinary. The host goes out of his way to make everything seem normal in his novel. The book opens on an ordinary day and the family lives in a typical, ordinary neighborhood, but if the audience looks closely enough, they will discover that the Jarrett family is not ordinary at all. The Jarrett family struggled with many problems. At the beginning of the novel, Conrad, the novel's protagonist, has recently been released from the hospital after attempting suicide. A year before Conrad's failed attempt, he was involved in a boating accident with his brother Buck, in which Buck died. Conrad's parents, Beth and Calvin, are struggling with their marriage. This incident began a chain reaction that would change the Jarrett family forever. Throughout the narrative Conrad displays a great deal of PTSD whose main symptoms are depression, anxiety, and feelings of isolation. The book begins with Conrad contemplating the color of his bedroom walls and explaining that: “They were freshly painted. Pale blue. An anxious color. Anxiety is blue, failure, gray. He knows these nuances” (Guest 1-2). Later that day, he “feels the slow, building pressure of panic building within him” (16) as he walked home from practice. He feels suffocated while sitting in the middle of a sheet of paper. They have had crushing losses and devastating experiences. But despite all the odds, they came out alive and well. Judith Guest does everything in her power to make this book seem simply ordinary. But this book is not simply ordinary. Even though the book opens and ends on an ordinary day, and the Jarretts live in a normal neighborhood, and even though the family friends all seem normal, nothing in this book is ordinary, especially the Jarretts. The real irony of the title is that since Buck's death and the aftermath of Conrad's suicide attempt, the Jarrett family has become extraordinary. When the audience looks at the situation from an outside experience, they see that this family has endured so much pain and conflict, but that they have survived. The people in this book are not ordinary. The people described in this book are simply extraordinary.