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CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT?
By: Roz Chast
Bloomsbury
May 2014
On Sale: May 6, 2014
240 pages
ISBN: 1608198065
EAN: 9781608198061
Kindle: B00JA9JE0Y
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
In her first memoir, 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, Chastβs memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents. When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the βcrazy closetββwith predictable resultsβthe tools that had served Roz well through her parentsβ seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed. While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasiesβan 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 decadesβthe 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; managing logistics; 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 We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chastβs talent as cartoonist and storyteller.
 Media BuzzPBS News Hour - March 13, 2015
PBS News Hour - December 30, 2014
CBS Sunday Morning - October 19, 2014
Fresh Air - NPR - May 8, 2014
All Things Considered - May 6, 2014
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