“The Great Unexpected” by Dan Mooney – No Age Limit on Living
Dan Mooney Begins a Journey Near its End
Old age is coming for us all, an inevitable fact of life most of us don't spend too much time thinking about, largely because of the existential dread it forces upon us. Nevertheless, the reminders are everywhere and become more numerous until one day we cross the frontier without realizing it. While it might be terrifying, in Dan Mooney's The Great Unexpected we get to see it's not all completely terrible.
The story takes place in a nursing home and introduces us to Joel, in his mid-seventies and absolutely fed up with his existence. It has been six years since his wife passed away, six years since he has been feeling utterly miserable and simply going through the motions with all the hatred he could feebly muster.
When his comatose next-door roommate, to whom Joel never spoke a word, finally passes away after a six-year battle, he feels he has lost the last and best friend he could ever have. Naturally, fate has other plans for him, and they come in the form of Frank, a retired soap opera actor who, it seems, has never really left the stage behind.
Though Joel develops an instant hatred for Frank (like for all the things in his life), his opinion of the man changes rapidly when Frank proves to be the only one willing to listen and stand up for him. The two old men form a close friendship, and it doesn't take long before Joel feels the thirst for life inside of him again.
With the end approaching relatively fast for both men, one way or another, they formulate a great plan to make the perfect escape from the retirement, to embark on one last adventure to experience the joys of life like never before.
The Assisted Life in The Great Unexpected
While nursing homes aren't exactly hiding from anyone, to many they seem like pocket worlds existing in their own dimensions, separate from the reality surrounding them. Their inhabitants appear, from the outside, like a homogeneous mass of seniors, and it becomes a little too easy to forget they're not much different from you and I.
In The Great Unexpected, Dan Mooney does, in my opinion, a fantastic job at portraying the nursing home life, despite the couple of moments which felt a little inaccurate and forced me to suspend my disbelief a bit. Thankfully, they weren't prominent enough to detract from the atmosphere which the author nailed perfectly.
While at first glance the people we meet don't seem too varied in their personalities, as we get further and further acquainted with their stories, ambitions, successes and tragedies they feel more and more like real people.
The character building was the first half of the equation which kept me engaged in the book, because I will admit, the story does move a little slowly from time to time, following the pace of its protagonists. Personally, I wasn't bothered by it, and I think it's something any reader going into a novel taking place in a nursing home ought to reasonably expect.
Naturally, Dan Mooney also goes into an appropriate amount of depth in describing the various challenges of assisted life for people whose bodies are increasingly set on betraying them. Thankfully, more often than not he approaches it from a humorous perspective, shedding some light on a subject matter which, at the end of the day, remains fairly sombre.
The Joys of Old Age
Speaking of the humour in The Great Unexpected, I would say this is the second half of the equation which kept me captivated from start to finish. The author really does have a natural ability to look at the bright side of life, and many bittersweet observations of his would have simply been tragic if made by many other authors.
His characters are also chock-full of personality and all add something of their own into the mix, creating numerous scenarios where boiling pots of colourful people spill into comedic chaos. Mooney does a good job at restraining himself during these sequences, ensuring his characters never devolve into caricatures of themselves.
As far as the main branch of the story is concerned, the friendship between Joel and Frank, I think the most appropriate way to describe it would be as a roller-coaster of emotions and thought-provoking observations. Tragedy and humour colour their lives equally, and it's nothing short of inspiring to witness them finding the light in the black time and time again.
I'm certain you've gathered by now the plot doesn't take us on anything resembling a grand globetrotting adventures, instead being concentrated on a relatively small world. Nevertheless, it has a tremendous amount of variety to it, especially with the amount of attention afforded to small details most of us tend to disregard in daily life.
If anything, this novel is an excellent guide on how we ought to deal with old age and all it brings with it, how we can adapt our perspectives to make the most of it. After all, the joy of living ought to be experienced for as long as there is life, and the final chapters deserve to be embraced rather than shunned.
The Final Verdict
The Great Unexpected by Dan Mooney is sometimes melancholic, sometimes rife with laughter, but remains from start to finish an inspirational and fascinating meditation on old age told through a heartwarming story looking at the better side of life.
If you're looking for a story with solid humour, meaningful characters and memorable meditations on a topic of concern to virtually everyone, then I believe you'll get quite a lot out of this novel.
 | Dan MooneyDan Mooney is an author, amateur filmmaker and air traffic controller living in Ireland. He began his published career younger than most would claim, at the age of ten, when he wrote for a child-operated local newspaper. He currently has two novels to his credit: Me, Myself and Them, and The Great Unexpected. |
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