An excellent in-depth analysis of a nursing home as an institution. The author uses insight and compassion in his examination of how clients attempt 'to live as proper human beings' in an institutionalized world. -- Social Work "Dr. Gubrium's writing style is as readable as a good novel; he tempers the inevitable pathos with humor. The book is an excellent example of qualitative research ... with obvious potential for nursing studies". -- American Journal of Nursing Living and Dying at Murray Manor is a classic text that documents how the "work" of everyday life in a nursing home is accomplished. In 1973 Jaber F. Gubrium spent several months at a nursing home as a participant-observer, involved in activities from menial "toileting" work to serving as a gerontologist at staff meetings. The result is not a survey of statistics about nursing homes but an examination of the social organization of care in a single home the author calls Murray Manor. To both the general public and social scientists, life in a nursing home has often come to mean decay, dehumanization, even cruelty. Although some aspects of those stereotypes may be true, life at Murray Manor, Gubrium demonstrates, is filled with intimate social ties, the celebration of small accomplishments, agonizing losses, conspiracies, boredom, humiliation, hope, and despair -- in short, all the complexities that occur when a group of people spends their daily lives together. Through observations and interviews, as well as transcriptions of staff meetings, he recounts case studies of individual clients, doctors, and the interactions between them. He details the diagnoses of various patients, the fate of administrative policy-making,the dynamics of patient socialization, and the intimacies of daily hygiene. Living and Dying at Murray Manor is a definitive ethnographic study that should once again become a staple of gerontology, nursing, sociology, and social work classes.