Can't we talk about something more pleasant? : [a memoir]
Record details
- ISBN: 9781608198061 (hardback)
- ISBN: 1608198065 (hardback)
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Physical Description:
228 pages : color illustrations ; 25 cm
print - Edition: First U.S. edition.
- Publisher: New York : Bloomsbury, 2014.
Content descriptions
General Note: | Subtitle from cover. |
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Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Kenton County.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Erlanger Branch | 741.56973 C489c 2014 (Text) | 33126019644883 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
- Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2014 March #2
Chast (Theories of Everything) draws the Moving Sidewalk of Life with a sign: "Cautionâdrop-off ahead." The New Yorker cartoonist had vaguely thought that "the end" came in three stages: feeling unwell, growing weaker over a month or so in bed, and dying one night. But when her parents passed 90, she learned that "the middle [stage] was a lot more painful, humiliating, long-lasting, complicated, and hideously expensive" than she imagined. Chast's scratchy art turns out perfectly suited to capturing the surreal realities of the death process. In quirky color cartoons, handwritten text, photos, and her mother's poems, she documents the unpleasant yet sometimes hilarious cycle of human doom. She's especially dead-on with the unpredictable mental states of both the dying and their caregivers: placidity, denial, terror, lunacy, resignation, vindictiveness, and rage. VERDICT Like Joyce Farmer in Special Exits (LJ 9/15/10), Chast so skillfully exposes herself and her family on the page as to give readers both insight and entertainment on a topic nearly everyone avoids. As with her New Yorker cartoons, Chast's memoir serves up existential dilemmas along with chuckles and can help serve as a tutorial for the inevitable.âM.C.
[Page 103]. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.