Roz Chast's acclaimed memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? is among the five nonfiction finalists for the 2014 National Book Award, announced this morning by the National Book Foundation. It's the first graphic novel to be nominated in one of the adult categories.

The first memoir from the longtime New Yorker cartoonist, the bestseller centers on Chast’s efforts to care for her aging parents in their final years.

The other nonfiction finalists are: Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes; John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh; Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China; and Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence. The winner will be announced Nov. 19 during a ceremony hosted by author Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket.

In 2006, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese became the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award when it was recognized in the Young People’s Literature division. His Boxers & Saints was shortlisted last year in the same category.

Also the author of Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons of Roz Chast, 1978-2006, Chast illustrated Steve Martin’s bestselling children’s book The Alphabet from A to Y, with Bonus Letter, Z.