Screen LibraryCan't we talk about something more pleasant? /
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 a mixture of cartoons, family photos, documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and com...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Bloomsbury,
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| Publisher Address: | New York, NY : |
| Publication Dates: | 2014. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Edition: | First U. S. edition. |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
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 a mixture of cartoons, family photos, 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. 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 "crazy closet"--with predictable results--the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed. 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; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care. |
| Item Description: | Subtitle from cover. |
| Carrier Form: | 228 pages : illustrations (chiefly colour), portraits ; 25 cm |
| ISBN: |
9781608198061 (hardback) : 1608198065 |
| Index Number: | NC1429 |
| CLC: |
K837.125.72-49 D771.281-49 |
| Call Number: | D771.281-49/C489 |
| Contents: | Introduction -- Beginning of the end -- Return to the fold -- Elder lawyer -- Galapagos -- Fall -- Maimonides -- Sundowning -- End of an era -- Move -- Old apartment -- Place -- Next step -- Kleenex abounding -- Postmortem -- Elizabeth, alone -- Bedtime stories -- Chrysalis -- End -- Epilogue. |