The Pianist’s Only Daughter is a frank, humorous, and poignant exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family. Gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams was the only daughter of colorful and talented parents: her mother an English scholar/poet, and her father a concert pianist/music professor. Their dramatic emotional lives, marital instability, and eventual break-up provided backdrop for her youth. Nearly thirty years after they divorced, her parents reconcile and decide to live together again. As her mother’s Parkinson’s disease progresses, Kathryn steps in to manage her care. In the face of difficult family dynamics, she marshals limited available resources to help her parents maintain their quality of life, despite the relentless effects of age and chronic illness. Offering insights about health and mental health, The Pianist’s Only Daughter touches on universal themes of aging, parent-child relationships, artistic expression, love and loss, through one family’s intimate story.