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 Readers of her new book, “Can’t We Talk About Something More
Pleasant?” see their own experiences reflected in Chast’s sketches
of her struggles caring for George and Elizabeth, her stubborn,
quirky, “codependent” Jewish parents in Brooklyn.
Blunt but witty, her words and images have sparked thousands of
letters from caregivers nationwide. “They all say nobody talks about
it,” Chast told Reuters Health.
Topping The New York Times graphic books best seller list for nine
weeks, her story may help lift the silence among those with aging
and ill parents.
“I get nervous checking my webmail, because I can’t respond to all
these people,” Chast said. “Whether they are Midwestern Lutherans or
Jewish girls from Brooklyn, details are different, but the story is
the same.”
Chast didn’t know how to broach the painful issues of eldercare with
George and Elizabeth, who lived independently into their 90s. “I
didn’t want to bring up these issues, but there comes a time you
have to,” she said.
The drawings show how Chast hired an elder lawyer, someone better
able to tactfully address medical options. Elizabeth, a
self-described “Jewish Christian Scientist,” informs the attorney
that hospitals are where “you go to die” and that doctors “have a
God complex.” Her preferences, however, are clear, and emphasized in
capital letters. Elizabeth does not wish to become “A PULSATING
PIECE OF PROTOPLASM!”
Hospitals cannot be avoided. George breaks a hip, and Elizabeth’s
diverticulitis worsens. George’s fracture leads to a rapid decline.
“He wanted to pack it in,” Chast said. “My mother was furious,
because she wanted him to fight.” His physician recommends hospice.
“Hospice is a very strange thing,” Chast said. “You can sugarcoat it
anyway you want, but basically it means we are not going to do more
because there is nothing more to be done.” Elizabeth remains in
denial, insisting soup will do the trick.
Elizabeth survives George by two years, a financial drain Chast
describes candidly. “If she lived another year, I would have had to
take a second mortgage or go into our savings for our kids’
college,” Chast said. “I was really starting to fray.”
The seven thousand dollar monthly facility fee prompts a bedside
conversation, recommended by a hospice aide, in which she tells
Elizabeth “you are running out of money.” Elizabeth dies days later.
“It was shocking that I said that, but the hospice people knew I was
starting to freak out,” Chast said.
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Its wit, realism and willingness to shatter taboos make this memoir
a must-read for those facing similar circumstances, many health
providers say. It is one of several graphic books released in recent
years addressing serious illness and death in what is called a
“golden age of comics” in healthcare by Penn State University
humanities and medicine professor Michael Green.
“It does a fantastic job exploring ambivalences, challenges and
mixed feelings one has around these issues,” Green told Reuters
Health. Graphic stories such as Sarah Leavitt’s “Tangles” and Brian
Fies’ “Mom’s Cancer,” he said, provide nuanced perspectives on the
multi-dimensional topic of end of life care.
“Because they not only use words but images too, the images do a
great job showing what it feels like,” Green said. “Emotional
context gets conveyed that is moving to people.”
Such graphic memoirs normalize topics that aren’t discussed in
American discourse, said M.K. Czerwiec, artist-in-residence at
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “When you’re
going through something like that, it’s great to know you’re not
alone and to be able to laugh at it,” said Czerwiec, whose website
is called “Comic Nurse.”
Chast is delighted to share those laughs with readers, stressing her
tale is one of more light-hearted empathy than instruction.
Of caring for her parents, she said, “I don’t feel like I did a
great job. It was trying to pick the least bad of a lot of bad
options.”
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