The death of a parent, in most memoirs, would be the book’s beating heart. Initially, this also appears true of Mill “Town, a recent hybrid memoir by Kerri Arsenault. In a beautifully touching moment near the end of her father’s prolonged fight against lung cancer, her mother guides him to the kitchen, her arms around his waist. He’s weak, on oxygen, and having trouble sleeping. His appetite has withered to almost nothing, and he’s suffering the indignity of a catheter. As they slowly make their way down the hallway, he turns to his wife. “Ain’t much of a life,” he says.”