New Yorker Cartoonist Draws Hundreds to Signing on Chicago’s North Shore

BY DANIEL GAITAN | daniel@lifemattersmedia.org

New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast never expected her graphic memoir to become a literary sensation – or a source of much-needed comfort to caregivers.

Chast discussed Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? – which earned her a number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list – during a recent book signing at the Winnetka Community House. The 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award winner centers on the stresses and struggles that Chast encountered while caring for her stubborn and unintentionally comical aging parents, George and Elizabeth.

“Our generation, we do like to bring up things that people aren’t talking about,” Chast told Life Matters Media. “That’s one thing about dying – it really never goes out of style. It’s always there, a one-way track.”

From their Jewish tradition, New York sensibilities, frugality and transition into an assisted-living facility, nothing is off limits for Chast, winner of the 2015 Reuben Award as Cartoonist of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society. Despite the subject matter, she still manages to capture moments of grace, sorrow and strength as she chronicles their decline – and death – in bright, whimsical four-color cartoons.

After the memoir’s publication, Chast scoured reader reviews on Amazon – and paid special attention to those leaving only one-star. Unfortunately, some did not appreciate her comedy. “I should never read comments on Amazon, it’s like picking at a scab,” she said. “There were occasionally people who would say, ‘I can’t believe how disrespectful this is, blah, blah, blah.’”

Chicagoan Jill Shtulman was not offended. She said the memoir became a “dear friend” as she learned to care for her own mother, who is suffering from severe dementia.

“When I first read the book, I said to my husband, ‘Roz and I have the same mother,’” she told LMM. “She allowed me to enjoy some black humor in it. If you don’t laugh, you just cry. You need to laugh in order to survive. But every time I would laugh, people would look at me like ‘you’re heartless, this is your mother!’ Roz allowed me to laugh at myself – she got it.”

During the event, Chast read briefly from the book and told a crowd of supporters the source of its title– her parents, of course.

“Between their one-bad-thing-after-another lives, the Depression, World War Two and the Holocaust – in which they both lost family – it was amazing that they weren’t crazier than they were,” Chast said. “Who could blame them for not wanting to talk about death? My father would say, ‘let’s discuss a more pleasant subject.’”