Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama
Book description
An expansive, moving and captivating graphic memoir from the author of Fun Home.
Alison Bechdel's Fun Home was a literary phenomenon. While Fun Home explored Bechdel's relationship with her father, a closeted homosexual, this memoir is about her mother - a voracious reader, a music lover, a passionate amateur actor.…
Why read it?
4 authors picked Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Fun Home is Alison Bechdel’s most famous work (and it is phenomenal), but this one captured my heart. While the former focuses on her father, here Bechdel turns her focus on her relationship with her mother, weaving in a lot of psychoanalysis and modernist literature.
Bechdel’s characteristic intricacy and attention to detail are on full display, and the frequent inclusion of dreams and their interpretation (a particular interest of mine) make the whole book feel almost surreal yet completely grounded.
From Sivan's list on graphic nonfiction that focuses on women.
Alison Bechdel (best known for Fun Home, a graphic memoir about her bisexual teacher-cum-funeral-parlor-owner father) also wrote this graphic memoir about her actor-writer-teacher mother. It largely takes place in the 1990s, when being boldly “out” was just becoming possible—and Bechdel joyfully and graphically reveals herself as such to her readers. With her mother, however… maybe not so much. When told that Alison is publishing a book of lesbian cartoons, the mother asks: “Isn’t that rather a narrow scope?” before landing the zinger: “You’re not going to use your own name, are you?” Still, the book’s power derives from…
From S.W.'s list on shattering the image of the word lesbian.
This book is perfect when paired with the P.D. Eastman version by the same title. In human life, we aren’t so different from the baby bird of the Dr. Seuss empire who believes a cow, a steamboat, or even a “Snort” might be his mother. The graphic component of this book in which Bechdel marries the whimsy of storybook illustrations with complex renderings of psychoanalytic theories explores the ways in which we are estranged from our mothers, despite their seeming omnipotence. It’s a visual and intellectual pleasure to read.
From Laura's list on the dark complexities of motherhood.
I adore graphic novels, and a graphic memoir is even better. I love when the medium of a cartoon encompasses such depth and nuance. Are You My Mother is funny, visually stunning, and addictive to read. I loved the honest, flawed, human portrayals of the mother and daughter in this book—as well as the other characters. I was riveted from the first page to last and read this book in one delicious sitting.
From Laura's list on the mother-daughter relationship.
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