{"id":36744,"date":"2015-01-09T10:33:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T15:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=36744"},"modified":"2015-01-07T21:56:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T02:56:05","slug":"cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/","title":{"rendered":"Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Can't<\/a>George and Elizabeth Chast were born 10 days apart in 1912. They grew up two blocks from each other in East Harlem, and were in\u00a0the same fifth grade class. “They never dated, much less anything else’d, anyone besides each other.” They married in 1938. Their only surviving\u00a0child was born in 1954 and became the award-winning illustrator\/cartoonist, Roz Chast<\/a>. George died in 2007, Elizabeth in 2009. Almost five years later, in May 2014, their daughter immortalized their family story\u00a0\u2013 including their inevitable passing\u00a0\u2013 between 200+ pages filled with of honesty, frustration, fear, hope, denial, humor, heartbreak, and most importantly, love.<\/p>\n

Chast’s relationship with her parents was always difficult. So proudly, exclusively co-dependent were George and Elizabeth on each other that even their daughter was made to feel like an outsider. They were creatures of habit who squirreled away far\u00a0too much in the “Crazy Closet,” and somehow never opened up enough with their only child. Their insulated life \u00e0\u00a0deux made Chast’s efforts that much more difficult when she was eventually confronted with the endless frustrations and challenges of dealing with the beginning of the inevitable end.<\/p>\n

Former elementary\u00a0school assistant principal Elizabeth was\u00a0a critical perfectionist, prone to “terrifying volcano-like explosion[s] of rage.” George, who used to teach\u00a0French and Spanish in high school, “chain-worried the way others might chain-smoke.” At 93, Elizabeth falls from a ladder, and the rest … well … becomes history. She never quite recovers, George flounders\u00a0into dementia without his anchor, and Chast must take control of the “sheer lunacy” that seems to\u00a0multiply daily. She runs the entire gamut of emotions and reactions from guilt to rage, from weeping to advocating,\u00a0from\u00a0mourning to\u00a0celebrating. Somehow, somewhere, she’ll need to make peace with her parents, their exasperating\u00a0needs,\u00a0and eventually her own self.<\/p>\n

I may be going waaaaay out on a limb, but I’m going to say that without Gene Luen Yang’s controversial, renegade nomination<\/a>\u00a0as a National Book Award finalist in 2006, Chast\u2019s piercing graphic\u00a0memoir most likely would not have made the NBA shortlist. Yang<\/a>\u2019s American Born Chinese<\/i>\u00a0broke the graphic barrier by becoming the first graphic title on the NBA finalist roster; his\u00a0Boxers & Saints<\/em><\/a> appeared among\u00a0the 2013 finalists<\/a>. With Yang leading, Chast joins NBA graphic history with her 2014 NBA nonfiction\u00a0nod.<\/p>\n

Of course, the NBA acknowledgement\u00a0is just one of many,\u00a0many<\/em> deserving honors Chast has garnered for\u00a0Pleasant<\/em>. That the memoir clearly speaks to an\u00a0entire generation of the so-called sandwich\u00a0variety\u00a0\u2013 providing care for both elderly parents and dependent children\u00a0\u2013\u00a0ensures its resonating effect on\u00a0an enormous audience.\u00a0We middle-agers of every ethnic, religious, socioeconomic background understand only too well: as longevity grows, so do our sometimes impossible-to-fulfill responsibilities. Echoing such stuck-in-between\u00a0situations, Pleasant<\/em>\u00a0is truly a stress-relieving, alternatively tears-and-guffaw-inducing, empathetic gift.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George and Elizabeth Chast were born 10 days apart in 1912. They grew up two blocks from each other in East Harlem, and were in\u00a0the same fifth grade class. “They never dated, much less anything else’d, anyone besides each other.” They married in 1938. Their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,73,312,107,60,20],"tags":[6608,6125,75,10,123,13,39,6126],"class_list":["post-36744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-jewish","category-memoir","category-nonethnic-specific","category-nonfiction","tag-bookdragon","tag-cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant","tag-death","tag-family","tag-illness","tag-love","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-roz-chast"],"yoast_head":"\nCan't we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can't we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"George and Elizabeth Chast were born 10 days apart in 1912. They grew up two blocks from each other in East Harlem, and were in\u00a0the same fifth grade class. “They never dated, much less anything else’d, anyone besides each other.” They married in 1938. Their...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-09T15:33:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-08T02:56:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/12\/Cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-by-Roz-Chast-on-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2503\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Can't we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Can't we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast - BookDragon","og_description":"George and Elizabeth Chast were born 10 days apart in 1912. They grew up two blocks from each other in East Harlem, and were in\u00a0the same fifth grade class. “They never dated, much less anything else’d, anyone besides each other.” They married in 1938. Their...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2015-01-09T15:33:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-01-08T02:56:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2048,"height":2503,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/12\/Cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-by-Roz-Chast-on-BookDragon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/","name":"Can't we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-01-09T15:33:36+00:00","dateModified":"2015-01-08T02:56:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/cant-we-talk-about-something-more-pleasant-a-memoir-by-roz-chast\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36744"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36816,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36744\/revisions\/36816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}