Who Cares?

<p><strong>Makes the case with passion spirit and humor for the full personhood of the elderly and disabled</strong>. Sara Bolder Co-Producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary 'Crip Camp'</p><p><em>Who Cares?</em> is the story of a lively place where old people go to die. Set in Michigan in 1960 the Woodruff Home for the Aged is a public facility for the indigent elderly. When a sinking economy prompts city officials to consider a private developer's proposal to convert the home into a pricey retirement residence panic sets in. The residents fear displacement; the staff fear unemployment.</p><p>As the clock ticks the novel follows the city's contentious deliberations the outlandish efforts to derail the sale and the complex web of intimacy and intrigue among its characters: Miss Mamie Martine a feisty octogenarian with an encyclopedic knowledge of film and her rival Mr. J. T. Hillenbrand a once-wealthy nonagenarian ruined by the Depression; Jilly Duprey Hillenbrand's biracial great-granddaughter locked in a power struggle with city manager Hugh Pepper; Laurel Robbins the home's idealistic director and Rupert Boyle the well-meaning custodian who resists her reforms; and Mamie's nephew Simon Walpole an amateur sleuth digging up dirt on Franklin Savoy the home's shady would-be buyer.</p><p>Is the title a cynical shrug-or a plea for dignity? As brisk and surprising as a spry senior citizen <em>Who Cares? </em>will make you laugh cry and think twice about the value of a life well lived.</p>