Can't we talk about something more pleasant? by Roz Chast

For decades, Roz Chast’s nervous-lined cartoons have been a staple in The New Yorker.  She is the Mistress of Anxiety and this graphic memoir goes a long way towards explaining why.  As her parents grow increasingly old and frail, she, an only child, must become their reluctant caretaker – and the reluctance isn’t only on her side.  George and Elizabeth have lived in the same apartment in a depressing and depressed area of Brooklyn since her childhood.  Aside from the WWII years, they have never been apart and they were long married before the arrival of their only child.  They are a unit and she is an outsider.  When the book opens, they are in their late eighties and Roz tries to open a conversation about “things,” and both sides are relieved when the talk goes nowhere.  But inevitably, as they enter their nineties, still living alone, Roz must step in.  Anyone who has ever been the primary caretaker for an aging parent, no matter how loving the relationship, will find him or herself nodding in recognition.  The 22 hour waits in the ER.  The confusion in unfamiliar situations.  The slow, and sometimes alarmingly sudden, declines.  The guilt.  But there is a lot of humor here too.  A moving and honest book.  228 pp.