An edition of Ladysitting (2019)
Ladysitting
My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century
By Lorene Cary
Publish Date
May 07, 2019
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Language
eng
Pages
256
Description:
Shares the story of the author's relationship with her remarkable grandmother, describing the latter's youth in the Jim Crow South, devotion to black causes, and management of her own business until age one hundred. Cary journeys through stories of her time with her Nana Jackson, and of five generations of their African American family. Nana was a fierce, stubborn, and independent woman, who managed a business until she was 100. She had an 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. Facing the inevitable end raises tensions, with Cary drawing on her spirituality and Nana consoling herself with late-night sweets and the loyalty of caregivers. Here she captures the ruptures, love, and, perhaps, forgiveness that can occur in a family as she bears witness to her grandmother's 101 vibrant years of life. -- adapted from jacket