The intro­duc­tion to Roz Chast’s mem­oir, Can’t We Talk About Some­thing More Pleas­ant, pic­tures an eight-pan­el, full-col­or com­ic of an aging cou­ple sit­ting on the sofa beside their daugh­ter. As the daugh­ter pre­car­i­ous­ly and awk­ward­ly attempts to involve her par­ents in a talk about ​“things” (“What kind of things?” they ask; ​“Plans,” she responds, adding, ​“I have no idea what you guys want!”), the cou­ple throws their hands in the air, looks blankly at her, shrugs, and even laughs. ​“Am I the only sane per­son here???” she final­ly asks, exasperated.

This exas­per­a­tion is a per­sis­tent theme in Chast’s mem­oir, which recounts her rela­tion­ship with her par­ents, and espe­cial­ly the last years of their lives, in excru­ci­at­ing­ly hon­est detail. An only child, Chast finds her­self bear­ing the brunt of her par­ents’ tran­si­tion from ​“the sphere of TV com­mer­cial old age” to ​“the part of old age that was scari­er, hard­er to talk about, and not a part of this cul­ture.” Her par­ents’ adamant refusal to deal with declin­ing phys­i­cal and men­tal health becomes an added bur­den, and she finds her­self expe­ri­enc­ing con­flict­ing emo­tions as she com­mutes from Con­necti­cut to their increas­ing­ly neglect­ed and dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate Brook­lyn apart­ment. Chast even­tu­al­ly tran­si­tions the two into assist­ed liv­ing facil­i­ties near her home, recount­ing the ​“painful, humil­i­at­ing, long-last­ing, com­pli­cat­ed, and hideous­ly expen­sive” tri­als that account for what she calls ​“the end.”

Chast is best known for decep­tive­ly buoy­ant New York­er car­toons that pic­ture char­ac­ters and objects in every­day set­tings, but which are mired in a sharp sen­si­bil­i­ty often look­ing to uncov­er those ​“hard­er to talk about” spheres. In this mem­oir she incor­po­rates her famil­iar­ly whim­si­cal humor along­side prose-heavy pages detail­ing the grief and guilt of fac­ing what can become, for many, one of life’s most chal­leng­ing and soli­tary ordeals. To be able to recount the sto­ry of your par­ents’ deaths might seem, to some, an over­whelm­ing feat not worth the pain incurred. But, as read­ers, wit­ness­ing some­one grap­ple with what feels impos­si­ble to dis­cuss is, per­haps, the first step towards learn­ing how to talk about ​“things.” And for that, this read­er is deeply grateful.