WordCrafts Press and author Laura Mansfield are pleased to announce the upcoming release of her debut memoir, Geezer Stories: The Care and Feeding of Old People. The alternately humorous and poignant memoir is slated to impact retail on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 in hardback, trade paperback and all major ebook formats.
Birthed from a series of Facebook posts Mansfield originally shared to help her cope with the frustrations, heartaches and small joys of caring for her aging parents, Geezer Stories will resonate with an entire generation who are facing similar challenges.
“We are the Taffy Generation,” Mansfield explains, “pulled in two different directions. As we live longer and have children later, we find our parents becoming frail and helpless, just as our children are becoming independent and leaving the nest (or not, but that’s a whole ‘nuther conversation). Just as our babies didn’t come with an operator’s manual, there is no how-to guide for taking care of old folks. We’re all flying blind as our parents slide into their second childhoods.”
Dividing her memoir into “Rules for the Care and Feeding of Old People,” Mansfield tackles the uncomfortable realities of growing old, and those unpleasant End of Life discussions that border on being downright taboo, with equal measures of pathos and playfulness. “*Geezer Stories* is about finding the happy in the heartache,” Mansfield muses. “It’s about forgiveness, letting go of the past, loving imperfectly. It’s about accepting our parents’ failings as well as our own. It’s about finding that intangible sense of community and support we all need as we face this uncharted journey of parenting our parents together with compassion and shared understanding. If we can somehow find the humor and humanity in it, perhaps we ease the pain a little—maybe enough to get us through the soul-crushing times. After all, what choice do we really have? None of us are getting out of here alive.”
The topic has hit a nerve with readers, as the hardcover version of Geezer Stories debuted at #1 on Amazon.com’s Hot New Releases chart in the Parenting & Relationships, Aging Parents category, while the Kindle ebook version claimed the top spot on the online retailer’s Eldercare chart. Together, the hardback, paperback and ebook versions of Geezer Storiesclaimed three of the Top 10 Hot New Releases in Aging Parents category, landing at #1, #3, and #7. Geezer Stories also cracked Amazon.com’s Top 100 Bestsellers in multiple categories, including debuting #6 on the Parenting & Relationships, Aging Parents chart, at #13 on the Eldercare chart and at # 50 on the Personal Health, Aging chart.
Geezer Stories: The Care and Feeding of Old People releases April 18, 2018 from WordCrafts Press in hardback for $24.99, in trade paperback for $14.99 and in all major eBook versions for $4.99.