In the spirit of Fierce Attachments, Bettyville, and The End of Your Life Book Club, acclaimed novelist Brian Morton delivers a moving, darkly funny memoir of his mother’s vibrant life and the many ways in which their tight, tumultuous relationship was refashioned in her twilight years.
Tasha Morton is a force of nature: a brilliant educator who’s left her mark on generations of students—and also a Jewish mother extraordinaire, intrusive, chaotic, oppressively devoted, and irrepressible.
For decades, her son Brian has kept her at a self-protective distance, but when her health begins to fail, he knows it's on him to step up and assume responsibility for her care. Even so, he’s not prepared for what awaits him, as her refusal to accept her own fragility leads to a series of epic outbursts and altercations that are sometimes frightening, sometimes wildly comic, and sometimes both.
Clear-eyed, loving, and brimming with dark humor, Tasha is an exploration of what sons learn from their mothers, a stark look at the impossible task of caring for an elderly parent in a country whose unofficial motto is “you’re on your own,” and a meditation on the treacherous business at the heart of every family—the business of trying to honor ourselves without forsaking our parents, and our parents without forsaking ourselves. Above all, Tasha is a vivid and surprising portrait of an unforgettable woman.
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Brian Morton, the author of five novels, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Koret Jewish Book Award, the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Kirkus Prize in Fiction. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.