Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century

by Lorene Cary Narrated by Lorene Cary

Overview

Lorene Cary's grandmother moves in, and everything changes: day-to-day life, family relationships, the Nana she knew-even their shared past.



From cherished memories of weekends she spent as a child with her indulgent Nana to the reality of the year she spent "ladysitting" her now frail grandmother, Lorene Cary journeys through stories of their time together and five generations of their African American family. Brilliantly weaving a narrative of her relationship with Nana-a fierce, stubborn, and independent woman, who managed a business until she was 100-Cary looks at Nana's impulse to control people and fate, from the early death of her mother and oppression in the Jim Crow South to living on her own in her New Jersey home.



Cary knew there might be some reckonings to come. Nana was a force: Her obstinacy could come out in unanticipated ways-secretly getting a driver's license to show up her husband, carrying on a longtime feud with Cary's father. But Nana could also be devoted: to Nana's father, to black causes, and-Cary had thought-to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Facing the inevitable end raises tensions, with Cary drawing on her spirituality and Nana consoling herself with late-night sweets. When Nana doubts Cary's dedication, Cary must go deeper into understanding this complicated woman.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Dan Marshall

What resonates loudest in Ladysitting…is the love that Cary gives back to her grandmother, even as caregiver's fatigue sets in…Cary shows the ugly, exhausting side of caregiving, but she also shows how the hardship bespeaks something more powerful: unconditional familial love.

Nikki Giovanni

"Rain dances nourishment
from the soil
Tears waltz love
from the heart
Sun dances a boogie
woogie while
Lorene Cary is Ladysitting
with her Grandmother
Question:
Who brings the beer?"

Real Simple - Elizabeth Sile

"[Cary] movingly portrays what it’s like to care for a loved one."

Booklist

"With admiration, triumph, and love, Cary captures the universal experience of close family loss. "

Dan Marshall

"Not just a caregiving memoir; it’s also a dive into Cary’s own history…What resonates loudest in Ladysitting, however, is the love that Cary gives back to her grandmother."

O Magazine

"Radiant. "

Betsy Lerner

"Cary’s chronicle of this centenarian (+1) is written with candor, warmth, and love. The final chapters are critical reading for anyone with an aging loved one at the end of their life."

Shelf Awareness

"A heartfelt, multifaceted story…This reflective memoir steeped in love and forgiveness explores a devoted granddaughter's perceptions about her grandmother."

NPR - Martha Anne Toll

"A thoroughly engaging memoir.… Cary invites readers into a complex extended family.… A distinctly American story."

Houston Baker

"Ladysitting is boldly literate and a brilliant work of art.… A lyrical odyssey of the multiply-descended and cross-generational heritage of black diaspora in a strange land."

Washington Informer - Terri Schlichenmeyer

"Open the cover of Ladysitting, and you’re immediately yanked into a story with an ending you already know.… One of the more deftly-written, truthful accounts in this genre."

Library Journal - Audio

★ 09/01/2019

Thrust into the role of caregiver when her 99-year-old grandmother, Nana, moved in with her, Cary (Black Ice) discovered a new dimension to her already full life. In this work, which is part memoir, part caregiver narrative, Cary shares both memories of her grandmother, and widely varied caregiving frustrations. Some of Cary's experiences include hiring help, contracting with home hospice, fighting with Nana's insurance company, ensuring care despite Medicare's refusal to recognize her power of attorney documents, and fighting the medical community when Nana's doctor denies her care because of a payment dispute between the insurance company and the doctor's office. Read by the author, the audiobook conveys both Cary's love for her grandmother in voice and words, and Cary's frustrations with caregiving and her ensuing exhaustion. Some topics Cary touches on include the death and dying process, working with hospice, animals' ability to sense death, and African American history, particularly the turbulent 1960s. VERDICT This will appeal to those experiencing or having experienced the caregiver role, those curious about what caregiving involves, and those interested in memoirs.—Laurie Selwyn, formerly with Grayson Cty. Law Lib., Sherman, TX

JUNE 2019 - AudioFile

Lorene Cary does a fantastic job narrating her outstanding memoir, shading it with the nuanced emotions it requires. In a wonderfully paced storytelling voice, she captures the reverberations that occur when her grandmother, who lived to be over 100, moves into her home. Her story is filled with all the love, pain, frustration, guilt, sadness, and, most of all, the appreciative sense of humor that caring for her aged Nana engenders. Cary’s knack for re-creating scenes and voices—especially that of Nana herself—is remarkable. Listeners will smile, laugh, and often nod as this audiobook explores both the complexities of a particular family’s history and those of eldercare itself. Insightfully written and beautifully read, LADYSITTING is a bighearted, fully human story that is likely to touch a wide audience of listeners. J.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-02-04

A grandmother's death reveals complex emotions and a tangled family history.

Growing up in Philadelphia, novelist Cary (Creative Writing/Univ. of Pennsylvania; If Sons, Then Heirs, 2011, etc.), founder of Art Sanctuary and SafeKidsStories.com, was doted upon by her wealthy, elegant grandmother, spending delightful weekends in her spacious New Jersey home. "Yes, yes, yes, I knew that I was being spoiled," the author admits. Only later did she discover that the woman who indulged her was more complicated and difficult than she had realized. In a candid, sensitive memoir, Cary chronicles her 100-year-old grandmother's last year, when she lived with the author and her family. It was a stressful period that tested Cary's patience and love and motivated her search for the "truth and lies, business and money, and communal and racial memory" that made up her grandmother's long life. Besides accompanying her grandmother to concerts and museums as a child, she also rode along "in Nana's latest late-model car" to collect rents from her tenants in Philadelphia, who lived in apartments "Nana would not have wanted to live in." When she asked about the disparity, Nana told her "this was business." Yet the hard-nosed rent collector (she once told a tenant who complained about mice to get a cat) also administered a scholarship fund for black students and set aside a storage room "to save people's furniture for them after evictions." Her treatment of family could be harsh, as well: She feuded with her son—Cary's father—reconciling only when she was near death; and she treated her husband with condescension. As her health worsened, she became combative. Although she had survived serious illnesses and a car crash, degenerative heart disease finally undermined her apparently indomitable life force. Cary recounts Nana's increasing weakness as well as the enraged demands—for particular foods and constant attention—that generated Cary's own debilitating physical responses. She recounts, as well, her negotiations with nurses, kind hospice workers, and Medicare's frustrating bureaucracy, experiences familiar to many caregivers.

Thoughtful reflections on pain, love, and family.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171504007
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	05/07/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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