The Big Move

We Americans prize independence, but for many elderly people, the price they pay for independence is loneliness and worthlessness. The Big Move is a fascinating attempt to marry personal experience with academic analysis to help us all reconceive of one option for later-life living. Moving to a continuing care retirement community need not be viewed as a withdrawal from life, but rather as a new platform to manage one's infirmities at the same time as one uses one's skills.

* Huffington Post *

This is a remarkable book about finding the right place to age. It uses a single true story, refracted through personal experience and multiple forms of expertise, to say as much as piles of data. You'll want to read it if you're looking for clear advice about the big move into continuing care, assisted living, even a nursing home. And it's appealing for anyone along the life course making "a big move." This book gives the perspective that is so often missing. It's a story not often told and too often dreaded. It tackles the broader social issue of how to age well and treat elders well on an irresistibly human scale. 

-- Sally Chivers, Professor of English Literature * Trent University *

We have very few accounts of gerontologists who have grown old, and never before a memoir by a gerontologist who moved into a long-term care facility. This book is not only a first, but is a remarkable and riveting account of challenges all of us must contemplate. The author's own story is amplified by insights from other contributors to this volume, which altogether make it memorable and compelling. Highly recommended.

-- Rick Moody, retired Vice President for Academic Affairs * AA