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 complicated yet transformative 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 NJ home. Cary, a senior lecturer at U Penn, author of two memoirs and three novels, has written for Time and Newsweek and been featured in O, the Oprah Magazine.