Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty

I must admit to being a big fan of Tim Sandlin, ever since "Sex and Sunsets" he has had my attention. This book is way to close to my age group and Tim is too young to know all the 60's music references. Scary as the prospect of my future in an "assisted living" facility may be, send me to this spot, I want to sit between the two Sunshines, I think I met one of them at the Fillmore at a Paul Butterfield Concert many years ago. Congrats to Tim, this hilarious book has a brutal honest side that is longer than Jerry Garcia's beard.

In this old-age romp, Sandlin turns his sharp satirical talents loose while doing that other thing that hilarious satirists can't always do -- empathy. Sandlin is able to both poke fun at sentimentality and yet he has a soft touch too; when these old peeps aren't expsoing their rear ends in mass-moonings, they expose their sadnesses, bewilderments, regrets, and disappointments at the lives behind and in front of them. The best part of JHT80 is the highly refreshing take on stereotypes of old age: the wisdom, feeblemindedness and bloody boringness with which old people are often relegated don't feature here. These old folks stick it to that portrayal and fling an adult diaper at anyone who ever says growing old means acting like it.

It's 2022, Jenna Bush is President, Gulf War VI is going on, and Gen Xers are warehousing their aging boomer parents in "assisted living" communities and taking control of their money under false pretenses. Guy Fontaine, a retired sportswriter from Oklahoma, has moved in with his daughter, Claudia, in California after the death of beloved wife Lily. But when he has a senior moment--he hallucinates and drives a golf cart onto the freeway--he is locked up in Mission Pescadero, an assisted living community that encapsulates the frightening world Sandlin posits for our future. An evil administrator runs the place with all the humanity of the worst lunch lady in the boomers' past, peopling it with patients brought in on the flimsiest diagnoses of dementia, with residents going "through the tunnel" to the nursing wing on even flimsier diagnoses by her corrupt doctor/near lover, where they are drugged comatose and quiet. The Mission's population is mainly leaders of the leftist movements of the Sixties, who have created a hierarchy based on when and what they did in the decade that you're only supposed to have been there if you've forgotten it. Guy, straight, drug-free and monogamous all his life, finds himself struggling to adjust with the proponents of free love and drug use in the golden years. But when the administrator discovers one patient has--shudder--a cat in his room, Guy is driven to violence to defend someone who had befriended him, setting off a revolt to liberate the Mission. Sandlin carries this absurd yet realistic situation with aplomb, showing real understanding of the concerns and difficulties faced by old people, as well as the trends of society that, if left unchecked, could lead to a world like the one he imagines here. Even minor characters are given some depth and the good lines are dispersed amongst them. Guy's unconventional romance with Rocky is counterpointed by other love stories, from a lesbian encounter between one of the youngest residents and a yoga instructor to an alley cat of a man who doesn't realize he has terrible breath. Even the villains are given some back story and some sympathy. And all to the tunes of Jefferson Airplane and The Who. My favorite character is a woman who comes out of a drug-induced coma to lead the revolution, barking orders in a remarkably cogent and prepared manner, which foreshadows revelations about her character that end up shocking the residents and prolonging their isolation. Full confession: I once met a woman who might have been a model for this character while doing work in a prison. Sandlin has the type down perfectly. He also has the good sense to provide a bittersweet ending, reminding us that mortality and fragility occur even among the worthy. Whether the book will become non-fiction, as Sandlin predicts, is really up to all of us.

I am always eager for a new read from Tim Sandlin, so when I finally had this book in hand I had to do a little happy dance before settling down to the business of reading. I shouldn't say the business of reading, because with a Sandlin book, it is always a pleasure. The true joy in this book, and all of Sandlin's work, is in the dialogue and details. It is rare that you meet senior citizens in fiction who don't exist merely to dole out sage advice and provide younger characters a chance to be pensive. The seniors in this novel, like real people, are still learning how to cope with life and the lessons of life that continue until death. Some readers may be startled to imagine old people using drugs and having sex, but by breaking the rote image of old age in this manner, Sandlin teaches his readers an important lesson. Old people aren't just dozing in death's waiting room-- they are still humans, with all the lapses in judgement and dips in self-esteem and occasional bursts of shining courage that we expect to find in younger generations. There are plenty of reviews available to tell you about the plot of this book, but all you really need to know is that this is a novel with heart, and it is worth your time and money. It deserves a spot on your bookshelf.

Tim Sandlin's new novel, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty, makes you scared senseless of growing old while looking forward to it at the same time. He states that sometime in the future, librarians will move this book from fiction to non-fiction, and I have every inclination to believe him. No matter how bizarre some of the turns in this book; it's not hard to think that this could be real, right down to Drew Barrymore as Governor of California. Imagine hippies and boomers, who started a whole new counter culture, getting so old that their children think they can't take care of themselves anymore. An assisted living facility is just what these people have rebelled against their whole lives: the establishment. Here they are, older, wiser (most of the time) and with much more worldly experience than the ones taking care of them. Now they are part of a booming business, with their children all too eager to drop them off, take their money and discard them once and for all. Thrown right into the middle of all this is Guy Fontaine. Unlike the other residents, he was never a hippie, never did drugs or protested, and wasn't at Woodstock. He's from Oklahoma after all. But one trait they all share is that they know for sure, yet refuse to believe that they are getting old before their time. When a resident's cat is confiscated, and the crap hits the fan at Mission Pescadero, Guy finds himself as the unlikely leader of the aging bunch, who prove that they still have plenty to offer, with mostly hilarious and sometimes tragic results. Throw in Viagra, LSD, pot, orgies, protests, rock concerts, dementia, Alzheimer's, catheters and more outrageous characters than any other Sandlin book, and you've got a novel destined to bridge the gap between generations. I've never before read a book that I could recommend to my sixty year-old father, my fifty year-old uncle, my forty year-old friend, my thirty-year old wife and my twenty year-old brother. And once they read it, I'm sure there are many more people of different ages that they would recommend it to. And the reason is that Tim's themes are universal without being set in a conventional setting. Amidst all the craziness going around at the facility, new love is found, death is dealt with, friendships are made and broken, and happiness is both a fleeting memory and also right around the corner. Within ten pages of this book, I went from snorting out loud laughing to being choked up with tears. And not just once, but consistently throughout. Tim is one of those rare authors that makes me have feelings that are almost identical to those I've had in actual life situations, kind of like a karmic deja vu.