Alison Bechdel’s new graphic memoir, ‘Are You My...

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Alison Bechdel’s new graphic memoir, ‘Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama,’ is out on May 1st. There’s bound to be a ton of coverage. Here’s the early stuff.

From the best-selling author of Fun Home, Time magazine’s No. 1 Book of the Year, a brilliantly told graphic memoir of Alison Bechdel becoming the artist her mother wanted to be.

Maud Newton interviews Alison Bechdel for the Barnes & Noble book blog

One of my earliest, most powerful memories of my mother is playing this game where I would be a crippled child like the kids I would see at the orthopedic wing of the hospital when I would go to get my fallen arches checked up on. I was just fascinated with these children, with their external signs of disability, their crutches and braces and big shoes. There was something about that that I needed to reenact, and my mother entered into that imaginary space so willingly with me and in such an encouraging way. Even though I knew there was something weird about having this fantasy about disabled children, she didn’t sensor it. She encouraged me to go with it, and I feel like she probably did that with me in lots of imaginary games as a kid but for some reason this is the one that I remember the most vividly. And I speculate in the book that it’s because it was a fantasy that she shared to a certain extent as well.

Katie Roiphe reviews ‘Are You My Mother?’ for The New York Times

“Are You My Mother?” is among many other things a nuanced, sophisticated investigation of the impulse to write or create, the desire, shame, guilt, excitement and shadiness of the process. Bechdel, unremitting in her exploration of her motives, pins down and examines the moral ambiguity of the venture, the detachment and ruthlessness and terror inherent in exposing those close to you, along with the mysterious compulsion to do so.

Buy ‘Are You My Mother?’ at IndieBound or find it at an indie bookstore near you