Jonna Carter: Treat your children well

Of late, memoir has become my literary genre of choice. I find few things more compelling than a gifted writer's actual life experience infused with introspection and woven into a masterful narrative. I've recently read two memoirs of note to which I gravitated due to my current circumstances.

I happened upon a New York Times list from 2019 of the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years as selected by Times's book critics. It was here that I came across Patrimony, Philip Roth's 1981 moving tribute to his father Herman, as Herman was slowly and steadily consumed by an inoperable brain tumor. Patrimony touched me deeply because of what I'd been through with my own father — or rather what I'd watched him go through — as he so valiantly battled a merciless Parkinson's Disease to its inevitable end.