Dwell Here and Prosper

Name: Dwell Here and Prosper
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Chris Eagle
ISBN: 9798212323338

Author: Chris Eagle

Narrator: Henry Strozier

Unabridged: 8 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Published: 05/23/2023

Categories: Fiction, Family Life

Synopsis

Dick, a blunt and bawdy Philly sports fan, finds himself in an assisted living facility following a stroke. Determined to regain his independence, he does daily laps around the grounds with his quad cane. But when recovery never comes, and days swell into years, Dick finds purpose instead by studying his fellow residents, chronicling their odd obsessions and their nasty arguments, their breakdowns, their drunken debaucheries—and yes, even their sexual escapades.Dwell Here and Prosper is a gritty but heartfelt novel, heavily informed by the author’s father and his experiences in assisted living near Philadelphia in the 90s. With its set of memorable outcasts—a shady jokester who insists he worked for the FBI, a schizophrenic Catholic who roams local cemeteries at night in search of the Virgin Mary, a twenty-six-year-old whose teeth mysteriously fell out, a middle-aged alcoholic who prostitutes herself to other residents for booze and cigarettes—it’s a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for a different generation and a different kind of institution. This timeless book offers a funny yet honest meditation on aging and community, and what it means to thrive in purgatory.

About Chris Eagle

Originally from Delco, PA, Chris Eagle has lived in Berkeley, Paris, Antwerp, Pasadena, Sydney, Berlin, Chicago, and now Atlanta, where he teaches Health Humanities at Emory University. His short stories have appeared in AGNI, Louisiana Literature, and SORTES.

About Henry Strozier

Henry Strozier is an actor with a forty-year career in numerous movies and television series. Also a voice-over artist, he has worked extensively in video games and audiobook narration, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lori on March 05, 2023

I want to first start by acknowledging the cover. Tell me it doesn't beg for you to pick it up and read the description?! I can practically smell the bitter skin and cigarette smoke! Dwell Here and Prosper will be releasing in May with Tortoise Books. It's coined as 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest......more

Goodreads review by Savvy on October 06, 2023

Finishing this book, I was desperate to know what came of earlier characters who left the assisted living facility for one reason or another, while envisioning what future years might look like for the remaining crew. All characters are fascinating and well-written, and I especially second the book’......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on November 19, 2023

I wasn't familiar with the publisher, Tortoise Books, before reading this one and was surprised to see the number of books they have published. I couldn't ask for much better for my first exposure to them. The narrator Richard (Dick, Dicko, Popsicle) is an elderly man recovering from a stroke and liv......more

Goodreads review by Scott on April 05, 2023

Dick has been moved to a facility tending to those unfit for everyday society, which is neither a care home or a mental hospital. It merely houses a multitude of delinquents with no chance of cure or rehabilitation. The book is an amalgamation of Eagle's father's notes of living in such facilities co......more

Goodreads review by Dhaval on July 25, 2023

Loved this book and chose to highlight it for #fridayreads. Watch: [URL not allowed]......more

Quotes

“Chris Eagle does an extraordinary job in this book showing the humanity as well as dignity one can maintain amongst daily indignities in some of our nation’s assisted living and rehabilitation centers. One does not feel pity or contempt reading about these vulnerable and complicated characters, but a sense of awe watching people live life on life’s terms. As the narrator of the book (Chris Eagle’s dad, a lifelong Phillies fan) might have said, the author knocks it out of the park.” Michelle Bowdler, author of Is Rape a Crime?

“Eagle’s Dwell Here and Prosper is a pointed and poignant account of the American convalescent home system. Based on his own father’s journals, it offers a rare and deeply moving record of the daily routine in these underfunded institutions. Leaving nothing to the imagination, Eagle describes with wit and a keen eye for detail how the American health care system deals with those who are pitched precariously between homelessness and mental health units. It is a story of one man’s struggle to retain a sense of control even as he realizes his humbling journey of endurance is all he might have left. Not since Kesey or Ernaux has the desperation, brutality, and inevitability of the care home hit home so powerfully.” Michael O’Sullivan, author of Lockdown Lovers

“Pointed and poignant... Not since Kesey or Ernaux has the desperation, brutality, and inevitability of the care home hit home so powerfully.” Michael O’Sullivan, author of Lockdown Lovers