Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir

My mother died just last month at the age of 90. During her dying process, one that spanned a couple of years, I did not feel wonderful or nice or nostalgic. I felt worried, anxious, and downright mean. Chast covers the unpleasant realities of aging in America -- ones neither children nor parents or the experts even want to discuss -- in her highly insightful and extremely funny book on the decline and deaths of her own parents, and her reaction to it.Death isn't necessarily all at once; it can be slow, inexorable, and boring. Annoying. Painful. An end without satisfaction. You may not like your parents in old age and sometimes I wished they would just hurry up and get it over with. And yet ...There wasn't one scene in Chast's book that I couldn't identify with that didn't either move me or make me laugh. Several years ago she had a cartoon in the New Yorker in which she unsuccessfully tried to get her parents to throw out their junk, such as keys to nowhere or a Band-Aid box ("But it's made of metal!"). My mother had an enormous, enormous cracker collection and a box of lemon pudding from 1962 where to get the flavor you had to pinch a tiny ball that released the lemon.My mother refused luxury assisted living, wanted to live without help ("we don't know these people") and fell out of bed numerous times, once breaking her neck in the process. Even though she had a Medic Alert bracelet she refused to use it and lay on the floor for days until a neighbor came and found her. Even with the eventual help, she just let the bills pile up, resulting in a clogged answering machine from collection agencies, the electricity being turned off, and an indifference to April 15. She only relinquished power of attorney when my brother threatened to go to court and have her declared incompetent.I got updates from my brother, who lived closer. One early morning call informing me that my mother was going to the ER had me promising to get the first train to NY."I wouldn't do that just yet," said my brother. "Mom and the aide are stopping at McDonald's first."Chast's portrayal of her parents is poignant and not without pity for either her parents or herself. It's well-deserved. This book should be required reading for children of aging parents and those who might want to figure out if there's some way they can do something different when their own time comes.A+++

I saw just a snippet of Roz Chast's cartoons about her aging parents in The New Yorker magazine in a doctor's waiting room several years ago and was immediately intrigued by the subject matter and the cartoons she created to tell her story. On this day the doctor was early, of course, and I didn't get to finish the cartoons, and within 32 seconds of placing The New Yorker back on the magazine wall rack, Roz Chast and her terrific cartoons were shoved from my short-term memory bank in order to make room for more stuff, which I promptly forgot as well.The December 30, 2019, issue of The New Yorker, page 33. THERE SHE IS! ROZ CHAST! Eventually, the memory of those aging-parents cartoons I saw in the doctor's office years ago came back, and I had been looking for them. Now I had found them and Roz Chast. I devoured The New Yorker article about Chast and immediately bought her book "Can't We talk About Something More Pleasant." I read it in one sitting and loved it. While she was telling her story, she was also telling mine.As the "designated" daughter--there were others but no one raised their hand and someone had to do it--responsible for my mother's final years, and the road to the end at age 92 was proving to be much more difficult than I had ever imagined. At times I felt so alone, alienated, and unappreciated---remember those other daughters?--because all of the responsibility of overseeing my elder mother's well-being was on me."Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant" is an incredible autobiographical story told by cartoons. It does focus on aging parents but there is so much more. Chast captures all the emotions--love, anger, shame, fear, sadness, resentment, guilt, despair--that I felt as I took over the responsibility of helping--to the best of my ability--my mother take that awful, and getting worse by the day, ten-year slow and agonizing trip to the end of her road.There are so many aspects about this book that I appreciate. It is so good on so many levels: the cartoons are terrific, it's a complete three-dimensional story of her life, the honesty about feelings we don't want people to know we have, but Roz shared them anyway (brave and admirable), the down and dirty rawness put out there for all to see--leaving nothing out--and the humor--oh, the humor is so, so good--that seeped into so many places you never thought possible. She's a great artist with a terrific sense of humor. She is someone you would want as a friend. I'm buying this for several of my friends who have gone down this road with their parents, and I know they will love this book as much as I do. Final note: I can't even fathom why someone would give this book a 1-star (grrrrrrrr!!), because it is one of the best books (illustrated or not) that I've read.

Colombian novelist Fernando Vallejo once wrote, “old age first takes you to the ground, then death kills you”. I kept thinking of these words as I read this memoir about the ravages of old age and the sad deaths of the author’s parents.Compassion, humor, clarity, and above all honesty are all present in this excellent book. Cartoonist Roz Chast describes, with words and drawings, how their parents lost their strength, health, mind, and spirit, how they (gradual but ineluctably) entered the chrysalis stage of life, that is, the great and general renunciation to everything that makes life worth living.There is sadness here but there is also a celebration of life. There are treasured memories. There is love to the nervous and sensitive father. There is admiration to the bad-tempered and smart mother. There are objects kept, and objects discarded (many more). There are things said, and things left unsaid (the latter are always more painful). And at the very end, there are dreams, the virtual territory inhabited by our loved ones once they depart."The worst thing about life –as the poet puts it bluntly– is that the worst part comes last.” This book does not deny this fact. But it makes it more bearable. Read it. Two or three times.