The Big Finish

Never miss an issue of Maple Grove Magazine with free, anytime access to our digital editions. Full screen viewing on your digital device allows easy cover-to-cover reading. Share your favorite Maple Grove Magazine articles with friends and family.

Brooke Fossey’s debut novel, The Big Finish, delivers a warm, heartfelt and occasionally funny story about growing old and living large told by a wisecracking man named Duffy Sinclair.

Sinclair, 88, and his best friend and roommate, Carl Upton, live at Centennial Assisted Living. Life is quiet, peaceful and a bit boring until the night a young woman falls through their bedroom window with a black eye and alcohol on her breath. The young woman’s name is Josie, and she’s looking for a place to crash to get away from her abusive boyfriend. It turns out, Josie is the granddaughter Upton never knew he had.

Hiding Josie from her boyfriend and management at Centennial Assisted Living becomes a covert mission involving hitchhiking, bar hopping and getting Josie clean from drugs and alcohol. This gives Sinclair something he can look forward to and a new lease on life. With this unlikely friendship, life at Centennial isn’t so dull after all.

The Big Finish might make you feel happy and sad as you connect with the residents. The unexpected ending might leave you smiling.

Laurie Stieg is the associate librarian at Maple Grove Library. Find more to read at hclib.org.