The Books Briefing: Why the Graphic-Novel Format Can Be Perfect for Memoirists

The dharma of working out

“There are some juicy tensions here, of which [Alison] Bechdel the memoirist is far from unaware. Self-forgetting might be one end of working out; self-improvement, leading to self-glorification, is another.”

📚 The Secret to Superhuman Strength, by Alison Bechdel

(WALTER MCBRIDE / WIREIMAGE / GETTY)

Alison Bechdel’s sad, funny, sprawling graphic memoir

“The comic medium allows Bechdel to weave primary sources into Are You My Mother? with a cinematic efficiency—enabling her to flash back to her childhood, to memories of first loves, and into dream sequences jotted down in journals. Its stylistic flexibility accommodates more layers than any straight documentary or prose memoir could support.”

📚 Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel

📚 Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel

(PANTHEON)

A graphic-novel memoir that tangles with the puzzle of existence

“[Kristen] Radtke, an editor at Sarabande Books, uses delicately drawn panels and the occasional full-page spread to move seamlessly through memories and geographies, creating an elastic sense of time that pulls the reader into her interminably restless mind.”

📚 Imagine Wanting Only This, by Kristen Radtke

(FANTAGRAPHICS)

Capturing Europe’s refugee crisis through comics

“Throughout Drawn to Berlin, [Ali] Fitzgerald holds up different lenses to the refugee crisis, highlighting the tension between the real people she knew and the vast, faceless statistics they represent. She doesn’t employ straightforward realism to bring her subjects to life. Instead Fitzgerald gives individuals iconic features—a gap-toothed smile, a ponytail. ”

📚 Drawn to Berlin, by Ali Fitzgerald

📚 Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud

📚 The Hive, by Charles Burns

(MIRA JACOB / COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE)

Illustrating the messy reality of life as an interracial family

“One day I was sitting around and I was having these conversations with my son about Michael Jackson that were so crazy—they were so funny, and deeply sad. I realized I couldn’t explain that to anyone—there was no sentence that was going to make sense of it. So I just wrote down the conversation instead. I drew us on printer paper, and I cut us out and put us on top of Michael Jackson albums.”

📚 Good Talk, by Mira Jacob

Correction: Last week’s newsletter gave an incorrect date for an event on happiness. It is May 20. Register here.

About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Tori Latham. The book currently sitting on her coffee table is Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

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