EBOOK
About
A deeply personal investigation into the current state of eldercare and what it means to grow old in America
Unlike many other cultures, our collective stance toward older people in the United States has long been one of casual avoidance and neglect. This attitude became brutally clear during the height of the COVID pandemic, when too many people saw elderly deaths not as tragedies but as foregone conclusions.
Like many of us, Lucy Schiller experienced this callousness firsthand when her grandmother passed away during the pandemic. In the wake of this trauma, propelled by equal parts grief and curiosity about her own fear of aging, Schiller embarked on an investigative journey to understand why the prospect of aging is so frightening and how being “old” in America intersects with class, race, disability, and public policy.
From profit-driven networks of care facilities to systemic failures in economic support, the future of older Americans looks increasingly uncertain. In Aging Out, Schiller reports this crisis, sharing the human toll of inadequate housing, health care, and community, while simultaneously excavating her own complicated relationship with aging.
Combining the incisive reporting of Evicted with the beautifully rendered introspection of The Empathy Exams, Aging Out is an intimate and unflinching exploration of what it means to age in this country and why Americans—including Schiller herself—are so terrified of getting old.
Unlike many other cultures, our collective stance toward older people in the United States has long been one of casual avoidance and neglect. This attitude became brutally clear during the height of the COVID pandemic, when too many people saw elderly deaths not as tragedies but as foregone conclusions.
Like many of us, Lucy Schiller experienced this callousness firsthand when her grandmother passed away during the pandemic. In the wake of this trauma, propelled by equal parts grief and curiosity about her own fear of aging, Schiller embarked on an investigative journey to understand why the prospect of aging is so frightening and how being “old” in America intersects with class, race, disability, and public policy.
From profit-driven networks of care facilities to systemic failures in economic support, the future of older Americans looks increasingly uncertain. In Aging Out, Schiller reports this crisis, sharing the human toll of inadequate housing, health care, and community, while simultaneously excavating her own complicated relationship with aging.
Combining the incisive reporting of Evicted with the beautifully rendered introspection of The Empathy Exams, Aging Out is an intimate and unflinching exploration of what it means to age in this country and why Americans—including Schiller herself—are so terrified of getting old.
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Reviews
"Lucy Schiller pulls the sprawling, opaque subject of aging in America out of the shadows of private and privatized experience and into the fuller light of history, politics, and the structures that shape our lives, combining the fervor of a journalist doggedly digging for answers with the patience of an essayist gently circling questions; the result is spectacular. Aging Out is an incisive and lyrical examination of the dangers and possibilities of aging in America"
not only for the old but for all of us."
"With Aging Out, Lucy Schiller has written a deeply revealing investigation of the eldercare industry. Delivering intricate research with intelligence, clarity, and grace, this is a thoughtful, stubbornly human book about the small communal joys that arise amid systemic failing. It will reframe your understanding of what it means to grow old in this country."
Thomas Mira y Lopez, author of The Book of Resting Places