What if you were a straight arrow from the Midwest whose daughter puts you into a nursing home filled with aging hippies who still act like they are teenagers dropping acid, having orgies and whatever else they were supposed to have been doing and they decide to liberate the home from The Man?

Well, it would be pretty funny, kind of cute, kind of wistful.

It could never happen that way, it never did happen that way, but maybe if you clap your hands...

It's 2022 and the old time hippies of California (with a few New Yorkers thrown in) are now back together, this time in an assisted-living home. It's been a long time since the summer of love, but you wouldn't know it by the antics of the residents: sex, drugs, and rock n' roll still rule the day. The only problem? The woman who runs the joint does so with an iron fist, even to the point of having her boy toy staff doctor over medicate some of the residents to keep them in line. Well, as she soon finds out, these elderly hippies have one last rebellion left in their bones. Sandlin keeps the pace fast with short chapters and lots of dialogue. Funny stuff, but also some good musing on aging. 3 1/2 stars.

By the way, did you know my comic novel INTO THE SUNSET also takes place in an assisted-living home? Much different plot, though, about a young man who disguises himself as an elderly gent to live in one of these communities. :-)

Funny start, then it just got too disturbing.

As a boomer and one who spent his college days in the late 60's, I expected to enjoy this book more than I did. I've found everything of Sandlin's besides the GroVont trilogy and the recent Lydia to be mediocre.

This had its moments of humor, for sure, and it made an overall statement about aging and how our society treats its aged. A number of moments could best be described as poignant, in spite of the absurdity that permeates the book. But overall, it deserves no more than a 3.

I love Tim Sandlin. This one's about an old folks home filled with former hippies: when one of them has a secret kittycat confiscated from his room, the residents all bond together and take over Mission Pescadero, the old folks' home. Pretty hilarious imagery, typical brilliant Sandlin dialogue. Funny, clever, all of Sandlin's books are wonderful entertainments.

I like Sandlin and his sense of humor. This book is original and funny but I have a difficult time forgiving Sandlin - and his editor - for the indulgent middle section which stretches a relatively brief period of story into chapter after chapter, boring the reader and daring him to put it down. The end was somewhat less than satisfying but less so than I expected after the middle section.

I will say that I really enjoyed many aspects of the book. The characters were interesting, if not somewhat less than three-dimensional. Sandlin's odd humor shows through, as does his ability to weave together sadness, humor as people deal with the inevitable consequences of growing old, as he did in his earlier GroVont trilogy with people growing up.

The author makes many references to the pop-culture of the 1960's & 1970's and the problems and fears of aging that I'm not sure anyone over 50 will get it. I would have given the book a higher rating but I hated the ending....but on the other hand it probably one of the points that the author was trying to make...."I'd rather be senile than cynical". I'll just put my rose-colored glasses on and pretend I didn't read the last 5 pages.

DNF'd at ~1/3 of the way. I did skip to the end to see how things turned out.

It's not really a bad story. I guess it's just not for me.
The good part was that it elicited an emotional reaction in me. Not an emotion I like to experience though. It's the feeling of not being able to control your own life. Being manipulated by others. It makes me feel breathless in a suffocating way. Watching the TV show 'Everybody Loves Raymond', the mother makes me feel like that. :/

Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty follows a guy, named Guy, who is sent to live in a senior care facility less than a year after his wife dies and he has one moment of delusion?. His daughter takes him to a doctor that writes him off as having dementia. The doctor, his daughter, and later, anyone that is not a resident in the senior care facility treats Guy as if he is not even there and when they do acknowledge him it's to tell him he suffers from dementia with little evidence. Guy has no control over his life anymore and there is crap he can do about it! It's the same with all the residents. They are being taken advantage of by family and conservators. This is definitely a topic that needs more attention, but probably will get little and there will be even less done about it.

Other than that, the story just wasn't that great. It took 1/3 of the book just to get to the inciting incident. I didn't feel there was the humor in it that the book, reviews, etc. touted. Or maybe I just didn't get it or was not the target audience. In addition, there were sentences peppered here and there that did not make sense, not because they were obscure '60s references, but because they were written with words that seemed to have nothing to do with one another. Weird.

There's a chance this book would hit the spot for people who grew up in the '60s?

All-in-all it felt pointless for me to continue reading it.
Anyway, there you have it.

Not Sandlins best work but it is definitely fun to imagine what will become of the hippies as they enter retirement homes.

I've always liked Tim Sandlin and this book was a pleasure to read but I couldn't get into it the way I have with all of his other books--mostly because it involved old folks and hippies, two things I've never cared for! But the story is well written ,there are some funny scenes and it had a well intentioned "message" that I thought was a little heavy handed.

Oh my goodness.....baby boomer geriatrics in a nursing home in the year 2022. This could be me! They seem to think they should still live like it's their heyday back in the 60's/70's. They revolt and take control of the home, have sex with abandon, get high and listen to all the classic bands from way back when. This was just so much fun, I hated to see it end!

I got this one a couple years ago and just couldn't make myself pick it up until this morning. I think it goes to show that cover art and back cover synopsis can really turn you off a book that turns out to be pretty good. I thought this was going to be all kinds of hippy/"stop those kids skateboarding on the sidewalk" sort of crap, but it wasn't. It had a good storyline and some memorable characters. Sandlin balances the tensions well as the book goes on to prevent things from cooling down too much or getting too angering to stomach. As a result the story really pulled me through, kept me interested. Good enough to make me interested in looking up some of Sandlin's other work. He's got an intriguing imagination.