Book Talk with Joan Moran: Once A Homecoming Queen

About this course:

One of the most unrecognized and undiagnosed medical issues is senior addiction—either alcohol or drugs. Joan Moran is a former drug and alcohol counselor as well as a former instructor at OLLI@UCLA whose recent novel, Once a Homecoming Queen, is about addiction, redemption, and self-determination. In this course, she shares excerpts and talks about her protagonist (who was also her life-long best friend): a rebellious, resistant, and darkly humorous seventy-five-year-old, Francine Freeman, whose extreme alcoholism leads to a bevy of problems, including a broken neck from her second fall. Rescued by her daughter and chief enabler, Francine is sent to rehab where she can make peace with her past and reimagine her future even though she is slowly facing her death. Her recovery takes her in an unexpected direction which offers a renewed relationship with her daughter, surprising friendships, a bittersweet love, and a chance to volunteer in a women's minimum-security prison where she ironically meets a man who intuits her struggle and gives her a chance at redemption.