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A Comic Novel
by Alison Bechdel
Book Reviewed by:The celebrated and beloved New York Times bestselling author of the modern classic Fun Home presents a laugh-out-loud, brilliant, and passionately political work of autofiction.
In Alison Bechdel's hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. She wonders: Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege?
Meanwhile, Alison's first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It's a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel's beloved comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For).
As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy—and when Alison's Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral—Alison's own envy spirals. Why couldn't she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show…like Queer Eye...showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?!!
Spent's rollicking and masterful denouement—making the case for seizing what's true about life in the world at this moment, before it's too late—once again proves that "nobody does it better" (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel.
This is a hilarious and utterly charming graphic novel that has all the self-deprecating wit and wisdom readers have come to expect from Bechdel. With her tongue firmly planted in her cheek, she lovingly skewers the forward-thinking, socially conscious intellectuals who struggle tirelessly against "the man" but would also like to keep their Amazon deliveries and rack up their TikTok likes. It also reads as a love letter to the wonderful and wacky Dykes to Watch Out For characters she clearly adores, a sort of literary thank you to them for helping her toward the success she enjoys today...continued
Full Review
(950 words)
(Reviewed by Sara Fiore).
Alison Bechdel's new graphic novel Spent revisits several of the beloved characters that Bechdel made somewhat famous in her long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. Though it was never published in mainstream publications, the strip was a mainstay in gay and lesbian publications for over 25 years.
Dykes to Watch Out For began in 1986 with a series of one-off comics poking loving fun at life as a lesbian in the 20th century. But it wasn't long before the comic strip began to follow specific characters as they lived their lives, lamented their relationships (or lack thereof), and sought out their own versions of the American dream.
Lovingly referred to by critics as the "greatest lesbian soap opera" and by Bechdel herself as...
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