In nursing homes and assisted-living facilities across America, millions of the Greatest Generation are living out their final days, but no matter how exciting or mundane their lives, they're now occupying a hospital-style room--a public space where they can't lock their door and strangers freely come and go. Life is a succession of pokes and prods, medications, TV, bingo, and, possibly, talking to Ira Rosofsky.

Nasty, Brutish, and Long is a candid, humane, and improbably humorous look at the world of eldercare. With a compassionate eye yet mordant wit, Rosofsky, a psychologist charged with providing mental-health services to his elders, reveals a culture based not on empathy, but on bureaucratic regulation.

In this portrayal of what is increasingly becoming the last slice of life for many, Nasty, Brutish, and Long also presents a baby boomer's poignant meditation on aging and mortality, a reflection on caregiving during his parents' final days, and an examination of the choices that we, as a society, have made about health care for the elderly who are no longer of sound mind or body.