About the Book
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 the Author :
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. Chris is currently at work on a short story collection set in Delco.
Review :
“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
“Dwell Here and Prosper is a fine, authentic debut novel about the Philly and Delco of the past.” — Broad Street Review
“Dwell Here and Prosper lures you in with humor and odd characters. Before too long, though, you find yourself heartbroken, and the people you’ve been reading about suddenly don’t seem so strange. This novel’s most remarkable feat is that it makes you recognize that you are not so much reading about the past lives of a small group of men and women but rather staring into the future. There, you see friends and neighbors, your own flesh and blood, and maybe even yourself—and trouble awaits us all. In ancient times, people called such glimpses prophetic. They served as warnings, as calls for change, for opening up eyes, minds, and hearts. Today, this book should serve the same purpose.” — Hayan Charara, author of These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit and Something Sinister, winner of the Arab American Book Award
“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, Is Rape a Crime? Longlisted for the National Book Award
“Eagle’s novel is filled with the local color, sports history, dark humor, and the grittiness for which Delaware County has become known.” — Delaware County Times
“Dwell Here and Prosper is set in a place most Americans would rather not think about—an understaffed assisted living facility, home to the mentally ill, physically incapacitated, unloved and otherwise forgotten. ‘The Afterlife,’ one character calls it—and Chris Eagle captures this forlorn netherworld in all its loneliness and brutality. But thanks to his cantankerous narrator, he also makes it a place of friendship, resilience, occasional joy and unfailing hilarity.” — Miles Harvey, bestselling author of The Island of Lost Maps and The King of Confidence
