Sunday, May 1, 2016

Sorry, We Can't Talk About Something More PLEASANT; This is a Book Discussion!

She favored sick jokes as a kid, Charles Addams' cartoons as a teen, and fear of death as a subject to be laughed at in her professional career. As cartoonist and book illustrator Roz Chast notes, "I love the end-of-the-world sign guys and tombstone gags. Anything to do with death is funny."

Except, of course, when it's personal and painful, as in her memoir ''Can't We Talk About Something More PLEASANT?" Even then, our author found that cartooning provided her the perfect means to express her frustrations and fears about dealing with the decline of her elderly parents. What we learn about her childhood, career, and relationship with her parents in this memoir is given further authentication in this interesting excerpt from "I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker's Most Brilliant Twisted Artists" by Richard Gehr. Enjoy it! http://goo.gl/8fLodh