#1 New York Times Bestseller
2014 National Book Award Finalist
Winner of the inaugural 2014 Kirkus Prize in nonfiction
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the 2014 Books for a Better Life Award
**Winner of the 2015 Reuben Award from National Cartoonists Society
**
In her first memoir, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast brings her
signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several
years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family
photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with
tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone
experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.
While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies--an anxious
father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped
into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing
personality had sidelined Roz for decades--the themes are universal:
adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents
leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable
physical intimacies; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal
care.
An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping
as best she can, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant shows the
full range of Roz Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller.
