Tasha

Novelist Brian Morton turns to memoir to write about his mother, Tasha, a woman whose life was full of color and whose bond with her son was close, combative, and often painful. The Washington Post named it one of the year's best nonfiction books, and it stands in the same company as Fierce Attachments and The End of Your Life Book Club.

Tasha was a gifted teacher who shaped generations of students. At home, she was a much harder presence: meddling, disorderly, smothering in her devotion, and impossible to subdue. For decades Brian kept her at a careful distance to protect himself. When her health began to decline, he could no longer avoid taking charge of her care, though nothing had prepared him for what that would involve.

Tasha refused to accept that she was becoming frail, and that refusal set off a run of blowups and confrontations that were by turns frightening, absurdly funny, and both at once. The book is a sharply funny portrait of an unforgettable woman and a hard look at the struggle of looking after an aging parent in a country that seems to expect families to manage it alone.