Care home stories are narratives – fictional or nonfictional – that represent spaces and places of long-term institutional care from various perspectives, thus reflecting, but also creating, cultural imaginations of the institution that often houses the oldest old. As Chivers and Kriebernegg argue in their edited collection Care Home Stories: Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Residential Care, “care home stories challenge stereotypes of institutional care for older adults, illustrate the changes that have occurred over time, and illuminate the continuities in the stories we tell about nursing homes” (2017, pp. 17–18).

Whether in a nursing home, care home, retirement home, assisted living, or other form, institutional care for older people offers a cultural repository for fears and hopes about an aging population. While people adamantly desire to age well at home, without making the “big move,” (See “Aging in Place”) as Anne Wyatt-Brown, Helen Q. Kivnick, and Ruth...