It’s not hard to see that Eggers often turns to humor in times of duress. After all, his entire memoir is full of humorous anecdotes and absurdist, hyperbolic jokes, and this is seemingly what enables him to talk about his difficult memories of his parents dying. In his mother’s final weeks, though, he discovers that it’s not always easy to think of jokes “in the face of adversity.” Worse, his mother’s oncologist doesn’t pay attention to his jokes. This causes Eggers to think that it is his “job”—not the doctor’s—to “joke.” In other words, he realizes that it’s up to…