All things consoled : a daughter's memoir
Record details
- ISBN: 9780771039898
- ISBN: 0771039891
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Physical Description:
remote
1 online resource (1 sound file (07 hr., 27 min., 13 sec.)) : digital - Edition: Unabridged.
- Publisher: [New York, NY] : McClelland & Stewart, 2018.
Content descriptions
Participant or Performer Note: | Read by the author. |
Source of Description Note: | Online resource; title from title details screen (OverDrive, viewed October 16, 2018). |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Hay, Elizabeth -- 1951- -- Family Adult children of aging parents -- Canada -- Biography Caregivers -- Canada -- Biography Dementia -- Patients -- Care Aging parents -- Care |
Genre: | Audiobooks. Downloadable audio books. |
Other Formats and Editions
Electronic resources
Summary:
From Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's most beloved novelists, comes a startling and beautiful memoir about the drama of her parents' end, and the longer drama of being their daughter.Jean and Gordon Hay were a colourful, formidable pair. Jean, a late-blooming artist with a marvellous sense of humour, was superlatively frugal; nothing got wasted, not even maggoty soup. Gordon was a proud and ambitious schoolteacher with a terrifying temper, a deep streak of melancholy, and a devotion to flowers, cars, words, and his wife. As old age collides with the tragedy of living too long, these once ferociously independent parents become increasingly dependent on Lizzie, the so-called difficult child. By looking after them in their final decline, she hopes to prove that she can be a good daughter after all. In this courageous memoir, written with tough-minded candour, tenderness, and wit, Elizabeth Hay lays bare the exquisite agony of a family's dynamics--entrenched favouritism, sibling rivalries, grievances that last for decades, genuine admiration, and enduring love. In the end, she reaches a more complete understanding of the most unforgettable characters she will ever know, the vivid giants in her life who were her parents.