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Arrives
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At a glance
- Condition
- New
- Dimensions
- 7.55 x 0.6 x 9.2 in
- Weight
- 2.31 lb
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury USA
- Publication date
- September 13, 2016
- Edition
- Reprint
- Language
- English
Description
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 The 1 New York Times bestselling award-winning graphic memoir by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast about her parents' final years, now with the author's celebrated new epilogue. 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. Read more
Specs 9
| Publisher | Bloomsbury USA |
|---|---|
| Publication date | September 13, 2016 |
| Edition | Reprint |
| Language | English |
| Print length | 240 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1632861011 |
| ISBN-13 | 16 |
| Item Weight | 2.31 pounds |
| Dimensions | 7.55 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches |
No specs match.
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Similar Products
Top Amazon Reviews
"The Wheel of Doom" and gallows humor about some grossly brutal truths.
Format: Kindle
* As I write this, my 83-year-old dad is withering away in an assisted living facility, riddled with Alzheimer's. Sometimes I want my Dad to die now - because he's unaware of his suffering - and he'd cuss me out if he knew he is turning into what Roz Chast's mother describes as "a pulsating piece of protoplasm." I feel guilty feeling this way - but "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" makes such forbidden thoughts feel normal. * (BTW, don't buy the Kindle version. This title, with its colorful cartoons and photos - as well as its handsome construction as a hardcover book - truly belongs on your coffee table. I sampled the Kindle version, didn't like it, and bought the hardcover.) * This book feels weirdly clairvoyant. It exposed my doubts, fears and paradoxical feelings about watching my parents die slowly before my eyes. I've read almost everything about the subject of aging and dying. And yet this is the first book that captures the exhausting experience of caring for aging parents, e.g., that it's sometimes gross - (see passages about hoarding, incontinence and "grime") - AND funny - (see "The Wheel of Doom" and Roz Chast's father's obsession with myriad bank books, decades old). * The author's hand-wringing about whether there's going to be enough money to pay for her parents' care is spot on. How long will the money last if they live "X" more years vs. "Y" more years? I do these calculations every month, constantly updating and trying to prepare for the worst. Any savings will be drained by expenses which will have no effect on terminal outcomes. If the daily care and feeding of your parents doesn't kill you - then the avalanche of paperwork and legal stuff that must be done - will. * Hence despite the preference to "talk about something more pleasant," if nothing else, this book demonstrates why planning for our parents' end-of-life care must begin NOW - not later. * I recommend this book for every person who's on the brink of going insane about their aging parents. Give it to caregivers, give it to your siblings, give it to anyone who hates dark subjects - but who can handle them if they're presented in a disarmingly funny style that's accessible - yet still honest. (I don't think I can read another "text-only" book about the "death spiral" of aging parents.) * In sum, "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" takes the hard edges off some things while inflicting blunt-force traumas about others. Roz Chast nails the impending death of our parents in a way that feels like a landmark work. I know such praise sounds silly given the sea of excellent books out there about aging. But I've never seen this subject presented in an original, humorous and touching way, complete with hand-drawn illustrations and color photos. It avoids the trap of being overly optimistic, forcing us to confront the gruesomeness of mortality - while STILL providing an emotional "lift" about something universal. * This book makes going through one of the darkest periods of my life - feel almost worth it.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2014 by Ironic Today
It gave me an enormous sense of relief. And it was unbelievably funny.
Format: Kindle
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+++
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Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2014 by TheConsumer
Indispensable
Format: Hardcover
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.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2015 by Alejandro Gaviria
Autobiolgraphy in Cartoons
Format: Paperback
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.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2020 by Carol Mayer
The Usual Chast Brilliance
Format: Hardcover
My Goodreads review: Years ago, a woman friend gave me a copy of Chast's "Parallel Universes," commenting, "Someone gave me this, but I didn't get it." I opened the book, began flipping through - and on just about every page was CONVULSED with laughter. The friend, with whom I lost contact a few years after, was likely a little annoyed. The book is still on my shelf - although we did clip "The Style of Elements" cartoon for my daughter's middle school science project (on one of the rare earth metals), a photocopier/scanner/printer not being at hand when we thought to include it. About a decade later, a former colleague and writer (also a woman) invited me to a talk by Chast at the Brooklyn Museum. By then I had purchased several of Chast's books of cartoons, followed her New Yorker cartoons, took great vicarious pleasure in reading about her personal and professional life. What struck me at the talk was how much her speech and mannerisms reminded me of Woody Allen. (Allen's work will always be funny to me, especially the writing, no matter what is said or conjectured about the man himself.). It came up that Chast's mother had been a teacher (I thought) at Erasmus High School, where Allen had been a student. I then imagined that area of Brooklyn as a paradise of darkly whimsical humor, with Allen penning "If The Impressionists Had Been Dentists" (Vincent Van Gogh getting a bit too creative with a dental bridge, with teeth "flaring out in every direction like a starburst chandelier" and his reaction to the complaints of his patient "She is so stupid, I want to smash her!") and Chast drawing "Pollyanna in Hell" ("Yay - no more down coats forever!") So of course when I saw Chast had written a memoir of her parents' decline and death, of course I had to buy it. And I was not disappointed. What did I love here? The expected moments of gut-wrenching humor, of course. But as my teenage daughter commented even as she laughed as well in recognition -- we were forced by economics to live with and care for (very badly on my part) my demented 89-/90-year-old mother for the final 18 months of her life -- "This is sad." Yes it is. And honest. The "Gallant and Goofus" cartoon self-depiction where Chast is both devil and angel as daughter and caregiver: That was me, so much so that my own addled mother divided me into two people: The impatient exhausted semi-demonic raging creature who blew my stack over repeatedly soiled bedclothes or spit-out pills or inane repeated conversation or impossibly exorbitant healthcare, leaving the room to collect myself and returning to a woman who would smile brightly as if seeing me for the first time in months and comment in a dramatic whisper, "Oh thank God you're here, honey - that horrible woman was here again, but thank God she just left." Hoo boy. What I personally loved: Chast had a difficult relationship with her mother, yet she knows that this overbearing former assistant school principal was a brilliant woman (concert-level pianist, clever anecdotal poetry written well into her 90s). I had a brilliant mother, as glittering, sharp, and dangerous as cut glass. Like Chast, I never had true closure, in spite of months of forced proximity. And like Chast, I was whipsawed by a sinusoidal roller coaster of "She's getting better"/"No she's not"/"At death's door"/"She could live like this for years." I wish Sandra Tsing Loh would write a review of Chast's book, since Loh's reaction, in her account of her domineering elderly father, to the wonderful caregiver who says brightly, "I will get him to 100!" her own dark thought, "What a HORRIBLE thing to say." I won't spoil the book or bore the prospective reader with more self-serving autobiographical parallels. I will say it is a must for anyone who has been through this ordeal. Or for anyone who has the foresight to see that this is just around the corner. For parents. And for themselves. As I have said to friends, when I first saw the film " Soylent Green," I cried at Edward G. Robinson's choice of "pleasant" euthanasia; now I think, "I wouldn't mind that option at, say, 74." Our hope and goal as a society, however, should be that the tsunami of elderly population and ever-diminishing, ever-more exorbitant healthcare will not make that "solution" desirable, commonplace, or, God help us all, mandatory.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2014 by Carolyn M. Weddell
MOVED ENOUGH TO WRITE "A STORY ABOUT A STORY"
Format: Hardcover
A Story About A Story by Ann-Marie Valery ————————— Sometimes bad luck brings good luck. It was late afternoon as I was walking along a side walk when suddenly a glass door swung open directly in my path. I’m quickly able to stop before my nose hits the door. A man exits the door. Although there is no fault, I believe we both apologize. I continue to walk along until I reach an area where I decide to pause and look over the edge of greatly sloped land to the water below. This same man walks the same path and he also pauses. We have a nice chat. I see he is carrying a book entitled Rabbit Run. I ask if, by chance, he knows of any book discussions groups. Lo and behold, he says yes, and then he explains about the Monday night group at the Chelmsford Library. He states that this very book is the one he is reading for this months selection. I am filled with delight about the book discussion group but know that the next meeting would be approaching too soon for me to read the entire book. Still and all, I know it would be fun to attend the next group even without having been able to read the book. I learn that the man’s name is Tom and I express that I will see him there! Even without having read the book, it was highly interesting to hear what everyone had to say about John Updike’s book entitled Rabbit Run! Toward the end of the meeting, a discussion took place about the book for next month. This book is entitled “Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant,” by Roz Chast. I investigated the book. Yes, I just used the word investigate instead of the phrase ‘check it out.’ Reading for me has never been easy. Learning disabilities, along with two serious traumatic brain injuries that left permanent damage, is not desired but facts I must face. So when I say investigate, I really mean it. I must investigate the book throughly to see if it is a book I will be able to read. Additionally, I must ponder how many words I will need to relearn, words that I use to know. I have to decide if any given book will become a full or partial study task or will it be a natural read. When I investigated “Something More Pleasant,” by Roz Chast, I instantly knew it would be a natural read. The cartoon-comic style would also benefit me. What I didn’t know is that I would be so moved by such a book. Various parts of the author’s story really hit home for me. Some parts hit to the core. But, let me start at the beginning of my story. My story is about reading her story—and why I am calling this “A Story About A Story.” While in bed two mornings, I had read up to Chapter 9. I remember having many thoughts but the two that stuck in my mind most are as follows. One, I remember thinking that the cartoon-comic style really ‘helps soften the blow’ of a sad story of her elderly parents. Two, I recall thinking ‘what an honest author,’ who doesn’t hide her own thoughts, actions and/or non-actions, no matter how unfavorable it may appear to her audience. To me, this is just the way it should be; however, I found it admirable that she was able to do this because she actually could have done it differently, yet she didn’t pick this route. She picked the route of sharing her inner thoughts at particular times frames in this real-life ordeal. After reading up to Chapter 9 in two sittings, I decided to review before reading on. I found that when I did go back, the characters were no longer comic, but very real. I especially felt this when I again saw the two real photos. I asked myself why. Why didn’t I feel what I’m feeling now the first time I saw these two real photos. The answer is simple. The text did its job. It conveyed that these were not just characters in a book, they were real people, real people just like you and me. Yet, they were no more. The author reveals very early into the book that these two parents are no more and she gives the dates of death. There is no foreshadowing, yet instead just the straight facts. Straight, the same way the author tells her story. Now it is time for me to be straight too. I must confess that I saw a little of myself in all three real life characters (Father, Mother & Daughter). The things I noticed about myself were not my best qualities, yet at the same time, I realized the humanness of it all. My emotions went from high to low. I laughed. I cried. For example, I was touched by the poem on Page 53 that the Mother had written when she acknowledged her own mistake. Page 65 is pure perfection. I love the way it reads. A perfect example of the pros and cons of senility, yet it ends on a happy note with an adorable illustration. Page 67 didn’t make me cry the first time around but when I went back to review, it did. As I said, things were more real in my review process, plus having seen the poem in her own true handwriting had an impact. Page 74 brought a good laugh while Page 80 revealed the words “psychologically uncomfortable,” in relationship to having too much food on a plate—a situation in which I’ve never experienced and probably never will. On Page 91, I enjoyed how the author summed up a situation about her parents by writing a page called “A Play in Six Lines.” As I was reviewing the book, up to Chapter 9, that was previously read, I was also cooking something on the stove top and thawing out some chocolate cake. I had this book on my kitchen table and I kept going back and forth from the stove to the book. And, checking the cake to see if it thawed out yet. The longest time span for staying on any given page in the book came to me on Page 93. I didn’t even see it coming the second time around. Yes, Page 93 made me cry the first time around but surely I wouldn’t cry the second time around now would I? Well, I was wrong. I cried even more the second time around. Both times I could identify a portion of the page that made this happen, it was #5. I was also able to pin point why this hit me so hard. It related to a personal experience I had with my own dad, and it struck at core level. It struck core level twice because it pertained to the “sleeping” and it also pertained to the actual “mattress” that my dad had been using. When I first took my dad to the hospital, both myself and my older brother assumed dad would be coming back to his house some time in the future but we knew he needed some immediate care as soon as he was released from the hospital. So I turned my dining room into a bedroom for my dad. I set up a full sized mattress for him along with a television and many other things that I thought would make him comfortable. When my dad first lay on the mattress he reacted in a positive way that was quite surprising to me. He continued to rave about the mattress. Yes, it was a comfortable mattress indeed but not the best mattress in the house. Nonetheless, I was pleased that he was so happy. Dad continued to go in and out of the hospital. At one time he was doing so well that we thought he might be able to return home. My older brother and I decided to get the heat turned back up and prepare the house. My brother then decided that we should flip the mattress and also change the sheets. We were both shocked when we realized the condition of the mattress. We had no idea. The present year was 2007 and the mattress turned out to be the very same mattress that my parents had as far back as 1969 when they moved from Burlington, MA. We even questioned how long he owned the mattress prior to 1969. Could it be the mattress my parents had when they moved into the Burlington home back around 1956? We didn’t know. Again, we were shocked. The old mattress explained many things. His back aches. His poor sleep. And, why he raved about the mattress at my house. The real sadness isn’t really about the mattress though. The real sadness is that my dad didn’t do anything to make himself more comfortable. He certainly could have purchased another mattress and he certainly could have had a new mattress delivered to the house. Heck, he could have carried a new mattress himself. He was strong. He didn’t stop working until he was 83 years old. There was no good reason he should not have had a nice mattress for himself. Yet, I knew the reason he didn’t. His entire life was spent doing for his children. He actually wanted to earn enough money to make sure that his children would be provided for after he was gone. He worked his whole life for his kids. He spent nothing on himself, ever. Not because he lived through the depression but for other reasons. Reasons that would go beyond this short story of mine. It was heart breaking to both my brother and I to realize that dad never bought himself a comfortable mattress. We exchanged a long look at each other before we spoke. Later, in May of 2008, we shared another long look at each other when we were flanked over my dad as he was dying in the hospital. All of these thoughts and feelings got stirred up on Page 93 of the book. And so I sat there, at my kitchen table, with this new lovely book in front of me, crying. And, crying. I knew it could be endless. But to tell my entire story would require a book in itself. Eventually I went back to the stove and I checked the chocolate cake. I felt I really needed the chocolate cake just about now but it wasn’t quite ready. Was I ready—was I ready to continue reading? When I did get back to the book, I gave more thought to the question I had asked the book discussion group members the week earlier when they had read Rabbit Run. I specifically asked about the book evoking their emotions and how they are able to separate their emotions long enough to step back and decide if they would say they liked the book vs. did not like the book. I stated what I knew about live theater where we end up liking and/or not liking a character, and how the theater play is considered a success if it moves us in some way. At this point in my review, I realized that I had already invested myself in this book. It was indeed an emotional investment. I reviewed two more pages and then I was caught up to where I had left off before. I would continue with Chapter 9. This also marks the point in that I decided maybe I should write my own story about reading this book. This thought may have arisen because I was so moved. When I returned to the book, I only had to read a little more before I was crying again. What brought on these tears? Well, it was Page 104. It was a combination of the illustration and the last words on the page where the author states that it was the last time her parents saw their apartment. I seem to not do well with anything that is ‘the last.’ It was now time for the chocolate cake. And, since my own health is on the line, I alternated between eating steamed beets and chocolate cake. I probably wouldn’t cry if I ran out of beets forever or if the last were gone from the pan. And, so the reading went on. I got a laugh on Page 122 when I read about “stuff” and “postmortemistically.” My emotions ran high and low throughout the next 106 pages but I won’t put you on that roller coaster with me. (Retrospectively, nothing compared to Page 93, not even the end of the book, so the worst was over for me, or should I say I felt the most on Page 93.) I read a large chunk of the book this particular day and then finished the book with two more readings on different days. I love the ending pages where as the author shares her own realizations. I love that this book is real life. I love that the comics help soften the blow of hardships. I love that the author is honest in her own shortcomings. Best of all though, I love that love was finally spoken. They say if you read a book and feel nothing then this means that the author has failed. This author did not fail. Even if the book does not hit a personal cord with you about something specific, it does touch your heart. A book that touches your heart is a success. Of course, this is just my own opinion. Read the book and decide what you think. Or, should I say decide what you feel. My own life experience, and recent realizations are that ‘emotions are meant to flow through us’ and that we are ‘not to hold onto any one emotion for too long.’ I am learning to apply this concept and I can say that it does work. With this being said, I think I lingered on Page 93 just as long as I should have and then I moved on. Oh, and the chocolate cake was good!
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Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2020 by Ann-Marie Tirone
Beautiful, honest book about life in less than perfect family
Format: Kindle
I really like this authors illustrations. Even though I was born in the 70s, my dad had a huge underground comic book collection and there were many things written by Robert Crumb in his collection. To be fair he also had superman from the 1950s and Donald Duck etc. I'm now caretaker of the collection after having put all the comics and plastic bags with backwards. Anyhow, her style has a little bit of Robert C's influence. To be fair, Robert Crumb was a very well-paid artist for Hallmark cards in the beginning. I like his style even if some of his comics are vulgar. I really love her style too. But, the most important thing here is the story itself. She writes a true story about what life was like when her parents were on the decline and intersperses it with moments from her childhood that give insight into the complexity of the relationship. Both of her parents were born to Russian Jewish immigrants who came around the turn-of-the-century. Even though they are first-generation, I see a lot of the old world attitudes in her parents. Let's just say that those attitudes and the way that they treat her would be considered very bad by American standards. This was not so much the case with her father as it was with her mother. On a personal level it was interesting for me to read because I have a graduate degree in psychology as well as Jewish heritage on my mom's side. Rather, even though there was some intermarriage, I have an unbroken matrilineal line to my Jewish great-grandparents. My dad is Scottish ancestry. My Jewish grandparents came at the same time as her Jewish grandparents and from the same area. On the other hand, my husband's parents came here in the 1970s and are also Russian Jewish. He was born there but came to the US as a very small child. Always struggled to understand my in-laws because his mom is like the description but this author gives of her father's mother. Extremely rude, mean to her husband, glorifying her son, and neurotic as heck. My mother-in-law is a very extreme version of this type. Almost all of my friends have non-Jewish your touch and when I tell them my stories out of stress they think I must be exaggerating because they have never seen anything like it. It was personally reassuring to me that this author grew up in the same community and had some of the same experiences with the "old country grandma's". I am still trying to figure out why the heck anybody acts in ways that are so cruel and demeaning and how their children and even bond to them in the least. This kind of behavior I first encountered with my husband's parents. They have been the cause of many fights in our marriage because they will call him up on the phone and tell him how to live his life, or spend his money, or do anything as simple as how to cut his fingernails, without my input. I could care less about fingernails, but I do want to have a hand in my own financial planning since I make part of the money. It took us 10 long and hard years to establish any real kind of boundary with his parents and it was hard. But, over the past five years, they have figured out that we stand strong as a team and that they can't try to split us apart or get in the middle of big decisions without there being repercussions. It took 10 years of that for them to even budge the slightest. I was raised in a very kind family, although I understand my Russian Jewish grandparents were horrible people and all of their children left them alone in their old age. Their children about not to be like them and their children also married into kind families. My husband has actually admitted that he loves my parents more than his own. My parents have always gone out of their way to make him feel a part of the family, they are extremely kind and loving, and they don't play bulls*** mind games at all. Anyhow, reading this book made me realize that I am not alone and that this type of craziness is the result of a very damaged culture. But, regardless of its source, it is still unacceptable. I praise the author for the grace in which she dealt with her parents toward the end of their lives. If she is reading this, I wanted to point out to her the family dynamic within her parents. Her father was born to a mom who was cruel to her own husband and to worshipped him. He married a woman who treated him the same way that his father was treated by his mother. Why the author's mother is so mean from the beginning I have not figured out. Loved this book!
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Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2016 by Alexa Douglas
... you are not alone in your thoughts about the sad experience of watching your parents age into oblivion
Format: Kindle
This book will reveal that you are not alone in your thoughts about the sad experience of watching your parents age into oblivion. I recommend this book to all of us that have guilty feelings that we are not doing enough for our parents. The content is fine. However, once again, Kindle has failed to properly render the graphics of another book. This is particularly unfortunate for this book because it is totally graphical. Even the text is actually graphic frames just like the illustrations. The whole thing is actually a book-length comic book, which is fine. This actually enhances the meaning of the content . . . if you can see it. About 80% of the book can be enlarged so that you can read the "fine print" and see the illustrations along with the bubbles associated with the characters when they talk. Unfortunately, Kindle has forgotten to allow enlargement of the other 20% of the book. One must exert considerable effort to read the 20% of the book that Kindle "forgot" to enlarge. Kindle has done a very sloppy job. I would recommend that one acquire the real edition of this book for a more comfortable read. A word of caution about other Kindle books. Kindle can render Pulitzer Prize-winning histories useless because one can not read the included maps that are vital to understanding the text. Kindle's upgraded OS now allows you to enlarge such vital graphic, so the problem should be solved. Unfortunately, it isn't solved if Kindle only allows the reader to enlarge only 80% of the graphics and leaves you legally blind to the other 20% of the graphics. In the case of "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant", one can struggle through the 20% that refuses to yield to the enlargement feature, but one cannot struggle through the miniscule place names in books that contain historical maps. I have even tried using a magnifying glass without success. Kindle is great for great literature that is devoid of graphics such as "Catcher in the Rye" or "The Great Gatsby", and Kindle is OK with photographs, but avoid the Kindle edition for publications that contain graphic text. Stick to "Something More Pleasant" such as a real book.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2015 by LE