Tasha
A Son's Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Sean Patrick Hopkins
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By:
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Brian Morton
About this listen
A Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
In the spirit of Fierce Attachments and The End of Your Life Book Club, acclaimed novelist Brian Morton delivers a “superb” (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air), 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 whirlwind of a mother, 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 time to 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, “deeply stirring” (Dani Shapiro, The New York Times Book Review), and brimming with dark humor, Tasha is both a vivid account of an unforgettable woman and 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.”
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"In 1960 I was given a transorbital, or 'ice pick' lobotomy. My stepmother arranged it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the American lobotomy, told me he was going to do some 'tests'. It took 10 minutes and cost 200 dollars." Assisted by journalist/novelist Charles Fleming, Howard Dully recounts a family tragedy of Sophoclean proportions.
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Freeman's Folly
- By James Gordon on 10-28-07
By: Howard Dully, and others
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My Real Children
- By: Jo Walton
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know - what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don't seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead.
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A strange take on an otherwise simple story.
- By Lauren on 01-08-15
By: Jo Walton
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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Peace from Broken Pieces
- How to Get Through What You're Going Through
- By: Iyanla Vanzant
- Narrated by: Iyanla Vanzant
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Iyanla Vanzant recounts the last decade of her life and the spiritual lessons learned—from the price of success during her meteoric rise as a TV celebrity on Oprah, the Iyanla TV show (produced by Barbara Walters), to the dissolution of her marriage and her daughter's 15 months of illness and death on Christmas day.
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Iyanla is Inspirational! A GREAT LISTEN!!!
- By Theresa on 12-04-11
By: Iyanla Vanzant
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The Mathematician's Shiva
- By: Stuart Rojstaczer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil, Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.
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Great read
- By Lee Crowe on 07-27-15
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Hope and Other Luxuries
- A Mother’s Journey Through a Daughter’s Anorexia
- By: Clare B. Dunkle
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Clare Dunkle seemed to have an ideal life - two beautiful, high-achieving teenage daughters, a loving husband, and a satisfying and successful career as a children's book novelist. But it's when you let down your guard that the ax falls. Just after one daughter successfully conquered her depression, another daughter developed a life-threatening eating disorder.
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Potent and Real
- By Susie on 09-17-15
By: Clare B. Dunkle
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The Center Cannot Hold
- By: Elyn R. Saks
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be defeated. With a strength and force of will that most can only imagine, Saks reclaimed her life and went on to achieve great success.
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Schizophrenia Inside Out
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-23-09
By: Elyn R. Saks
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Small Admissions
- A Novel
- By: Amy Poeppel
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite her innate ambition and summa cum laude smarts, Kate Pearson has turned into a major slacker. After being dumped by her handsome French "almost fiancé", she abandons her grad school plans and spends her days lolling on the couch, leaving her apartment only when a dog-walking gig demands it. Her friends don't know what to do other than pass tissues and hope for a comeback while her practical sister, Angela, pushes every remedy she can think of, from trapeze class to therapy to job interviews.
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For fans of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette ?"
- By RueRue on 01-16-17
By: Amy Poeppel
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.
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Narrator
- By Barbara on 11-10-24
By: Lori Ostlund
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Schuyler's Monster
- A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter
- By: Robert Rummel-Hudson
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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When Schuyler Rummel-Hudson was 18 months old, a question about her lack of speech by her pediatrician set in motion a journey that continues today. When she was diagnosed with bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria (an extremely rare neurological disorder), her parents were given a name for the monster that had been stalking them from doctor to doctor, and from despair to hope, and back again.
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Must-read for medical parents & those who ❤them
- By Kelly A. Wolske on 05-23-18
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Young Hearts Crying
- By: Richard Yates
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Yates movingly portrays a man and a woman from their courtship in the 1950s to their divorce in the '70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions. Michael Davenport dreams of being a poet after returning home from World War II, and at first he and his new wife, Lucy, enjoy their life together. But as the decades pass and the success of others creates a fear of failure in both Michael and Lucy, their once bright future gives way to a life of adultery and isolation.
By: Richard Yates
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Familyhood
- By: Paul Reiser
- Narrated by: Paul Reiser
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Familyhood, Reiser shares his observations on parenting, marriage, and mid-life with the wit, warmth, and humor that he’s so well-known for. From the first experience of sending his two boys off to summer camp to maneuvering the minefield of bad words learned at school, this hilarious new book captures the spirit of familyhood, the logical next frontier for Reiser’s trademark perspective on the universal truths of life, love, and relationships.
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Witty and warm, a pleasurable read
- By Frank on 06-03-11
By: Paul Reiser
What listeners say about Tasha
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-08-23
Excellent
For everyone who has been, or might soon be, a caring son or daughter to an aging parent. Tasha beautifully expresses the full range of emotion, without being sentimental or mean. Delightful.
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- minionkinggg
- 05-05-22
what to do?
Could feel the family's struggles with how to help mom, and her frustration as well.
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- Barbara
- 06-26-22
Loved this book
My husband is in the process of dying from an incurable disease called MSA so I found the end of life issues so poignant
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- Kaidong
- 05-18-22
I Can't Help But Feel There's Something Missing
I appreciate the effort for the author to be willing to see his mother as what she was, not what she is/was in his memories, in this memoir of his. However, I don't think he was able to sufficiently include the most important part of Tasha's person -- her children.
The book follows a chronological timeline interwoven with flashbacks, starting from Tasha's first sign of losing herself to age, to her first signs of dementia, to her demise. Morton seems less interested to talk about those times in terms of feelings, and I can see why that could be an intended effect. The description of Tasha's life before her stroke is tinted with rose colored glasses. She was a rebellious child, running from her home and changing her name at 16. She was a communist, who worked in a labor union. She was a revolutionary grade school teacher, working miracles for slow children. Those are all praise and accomplishment that can be so easily packaged in a box and sold to a stranger. Juxtapose that to her current form -- frail, losing her independence, and stubborn -- the gray tinted glasses of the realities of old age. I say that's intentional, because as the book progresses, Morton cleverly blends the rose-tinted and the grey-tinted together, telling the audience that Tasha doesn't have a "before the stroke" and "after the stroke". I think this is ultimately the book's strength. The climax of Chapter 37, where Morton surmises Tasha's dying words' meaning, features a furious monologue that feels like an overwhelming force of sorrow, that engulfed me and forced me to looks at Tasha's grievances, all of them, all at once. That climax was set up masterfully, and paid off handsomely, for me.
There is once thing that I feel is missing from the mosaic of Tasha that Morton managed to piece together for the reader. A missing section, if you will, and that is Tasha's relationship with her children. The book talks a lot about the things that Melinda and Brian did for Tasha during her old age, but didn't really dive into how their actions make Tasha feel. This "missing shape" is felt especially at Chapter 37, Where Tasha's last breath seem to curse her children for their neglect, but doesn't really feel like it was set up properly. As a result, I couldn't really relate to why she would have been so angry with her children. But given that Morton is Brian, I can see how such an undertaking can seem invisible.
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- CS
- 05-21-22
Refreshingly raw, humorous and relatable!
I love that the author does not hide from the harsh reality that we all eventually face of watching our parents decline and eventually pass, but rather approaches the subject with humor, warmth, love and compassion. Anyone with an aging parent can relate and feel less alone and see an example of one son’s journey navigating this unpredictable and difficult period of one’s life with humor, grace, and a genuine attempt to understand and portray the woman his mother really was.
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