Roz Chast

“Greta abides by the reasonable philosophy that there is nothing in the universe more boring than someone else's dreams.”
― Elan Mastai, All Our Wrong Todays

When a writer is famous and beloved enough, the old saw goes, they can publish their grocery list and people will buy it. Roz Chast seems to be putting that to the test with this jumble of random thoughts about dreams and recreations of dreams from her dream journals and personal correspondence. And that her book has ended up on several lists as one of the best graphic novels of 2023 (see below) puts me in mind of another old saw, ""There's a sucker born every minute."

(Best of 2023 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:
• Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2023
• Publishers Weekly 2023 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
• NPR's Books We Love 2023: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels

This book made all three lists.)… (meer)

Some were funny, some weren't. That's cartoon humor for you. My favorites:

Trial Balloons in Apartment 3-B (Mom: "Lentils - a tasty, inexpensive alternative to meat.")

Hoax Ethnic Food food cart ("New York's Only Kwzntueaaian Cuisine")

Schadenfruede Monthly magazine cover ("Obnoxious Heiress's Cosmetic Surgery Goes Horribly Wrong! Scads of gruesome pictures, pages 11-15")

The NRA's Written Test for a Gun License ("I'm all for gun safety, but _____________________________ (use reverse side if necessary)" )

The Big Book of Parent-Child Fights (Chapter 1, Food Arguments - page 1. Chapter 2, Bedtime Feuds - page 832.)

Sudden Genius catalog ("#3188: Russian Headbox. Russian mystics have long known that putting one's head in a box concentrates the cranial aura. Easy to use, safe, 100% effective. $124.99")

The Daily Bugle newspaper (Headlines: "$165 Billion!!! Huge Amount of Money! No Doubt About It!" "$80 Billion. Not As Impressive As It Once Was." "$5 Billion. *Yawn*" "$400 Million. So What?" "$100 Million. Nobody Cares.")

Woodwork Clothes catalog. ("#638: Nothing-Special Skirt. How many times have you wanted to just disappear completely? Order your skirt in Ignore, Vague, and Goodbye.")… (meer)

I've already been through this process with my parents. My father died of lung cancer in his early seventies and most of his caregiving fell on my mother. Then, ten years later, after living on her own alone all that time, her health and mental state began to fail. She took a trip to see me and when she got off the plane, she could walk through the airport, but by the time she left she couldn't lift her leg up onto the curb. She was hallucinating small things, "oh did you see that cat cross the road?" and arguing about things like, "Obama started the war in Afghanistan."

I was putting her on a plane to my brother for my niece's graduation. She took a turn and ended up in the hospital with a bladder infection. We ended up putting her in a memory care senior home near my brother as we realized that her mind was going and her neighbors told us she had lived on her own for too long. I took a job based out of SoCal which allowed me to come down and visit once a month, but the majority of care was on my brother who faithfully took her out once a week for ice cream or nail appointments. She was angry at us because she wanted to go home. She would kick her walker into other patients she thought were stealing from her. She would eat the box of See's Candy and then claim that someone else stole them. She lost her bowels on the way to the bathroom at Outback. Her health continued to decline as did her quality of life until she died. The whole process was heartbreaking. It was only after my Mom died that I could process and remember her for the strong and wonderful mother she had been for most of my life.

No one can tell you what to expect or how to navigate this. This memoir by Roz Chast comes very close to giving you a heads-up. One thing she talks about in the book, which we also found invaluable, is hiring an attorney who deals with elder care. They helped us navigate her finances, her care, etc. They had people on staff who regularly toured the local senior places and could tell us which would be the best for her.

Would I recommend this to my friend whose parents are starting to fail but are still in reasonably good shape to let them know what they can expect? Oh, boy. Maybe.

Would I recommend someone who is in the process of going through this with a parent? Yes. You are not alone. And this is terrible.

Chast is open and unflinching. This is a heartbreaking book about a process that most of us must go through.… (meer)