Escape from Assisted Living

"Escape from Assisted Living is a wonderful read, extremely funny yet perceptive and moving about families and aging."--Deidre Donahue, Contributing Book Editor, AARP
"Coming-of-age fiction for the older crowd, in which debut novelist Hicks explores the burdens of secrets and guilt."-- Kirkus Reviews

To the landmarks of Chicago and the wrong side of the law, Betty Miles escapes from assisted living finding new friends and independence. Her daughter’s quest to bring her home will test everyone’s assumptions about old age, family, and the kindness of secrets.

Sharon D’Angelo thought it was a solid plan to move her mother into a senior care facility, but after just three weeks, the octogenarian is already planning her exit.

Bored with craft projects and the kitchen utensil band, Betty buys a train ticket to Chicago. But having spent her life as a model mother and housewife, she worries about misbehaving; a good mother wouldn’t disappear like this. Then Betty learns that her late husband—a respectable man—did a little misbehaving himself: there’s a safe deposit box stashed away in Chicago, filled with who knows what. Betty has to find the truth, no matter the consequences.

Sharon is devastated to find Betty gone; a good daughter wouldn’t lose her mother like this. She and her husband Vince trail after Betty, discovering along the way that their struggling marriage has its own secrets to confront and that a journey can change a family just as much as it can change an individual.

Betty Book 2, One More Foxtrot--New characters like Vince's mother Mary and surprising old acquaintances and new ones bring surprising events in Elkhart, Indiana and Chicago.
Betty Book 3, Open Roads--New challenges for Betty and Sharon to finding the good life, as Betty hits the road in an RV. But is her charming companion merely eccentric or unhinged?

Joyce Hicks' fiction has appeared in Passager, Uncharted Territory, Touch: The Journal of Healing, and others. "An Outing for Betty," the first chapter of Escape from Assisted living, appeared in Literary Mama and was named within the editor's ten-best for 2007. This citation along with receiving an honorable mention for Chicago NPR's contest for Stories on Stage validated her interest in the minutiae of family life, particularly at the gateways to new stages. She has appeared at story-telling events in Chicago. She coached students in writing at a midwestern university lives with her pets and husband in northwest Indiana.