In her acclaimed first memoir, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast turns her sharp wit and unmistakable style to one of life’s most difficult subjects: aging parents. Told through a blend of four-color cartoons, family photographs, documents, and a candid, often laugh-out-loud narrative, Chast’s memoir offers both comfort and comic relief to anyone navigating the heartbreak and absurdity of watching elderly parents decline.
Her story is deeply personal—an anxious father slipping into dementia, a domineering mother whose fierce independence had long kept Roz at arm’s length—but the emotional terrain is universal. Adult children becoming caretakers, the painful decision to leave the family home, the awkwardness of intimate care, the stress of hiring strangers to do what once felt unimaginable—Chast captures it all with unflinching honesty and signature humor.
At once tender and unsparing, heartbreaking and hilarious, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? is a brilliant portrait of two lives at their end and an only child doing her best to manage love, guilt, and grief. It’s a masterclass in storytelling—and a stunning reminder that even in life’s hardest moments, there’s room for laughter.
#1 New York Times Bestseller. 2014 National Book Award Finalist. Winner of the inaugural 2014 Kirkus Prize in Non Fiction.
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