An intense, brilliantly conceived graphic memoir announcing the arrival of a new talent to watch.
A cartoonist and writer reflects on intergenerational trauma and its relationship to modern colonial violence.
Family stories about heroic escapes during the Holocaust mesmerized Brager almost as much as those about their great-grandfather Erich, mythologized as the man who beat Joseph Goebbels in a boxing match. However, as Brager shows, those stories—along with the unarticulated events that led to the formation of their transgender identity—also haunted the author. Unable to speak directly about the trauma surrounding their transition, Brager wrote about family Holocaust stories instead, which graduate school history professors rejected as too personal. In this debut, the author uses their formidable skills as an artist to transform that research journey into a unique comic book–style narrative that interweaves tales of their inherited past with their own imperfect recollections. Grounding the narrative in work by psychiatrists, historians, and Holocaust survivors like Primo Levi, Brager achieves not only critical distance from their own work, but also the ability to see how other legacies of oppression subtly intersected both the Holocaust and their own life. In considering a gold bracelet inherited from their mother, for example, Brager was able to visualize their connections to the original owner, their great-grandmother, Ilse, and the bracelet’s giver, Erich, and link a historical artifact to a real event—in this case, Ilse’s escape from Germany. Brager shows readers how the bracelet, made in French colonial Morocco, functions as evidence of the subtle, unquestioned ways that colonial violence could embed itself in the histories of other oppressed people. As the author probes the many ways in which cultures intersect, they challenge readers to make deeper, more complex connections among self, family, and the many histories in which the self necessarily—but sometimes unknowingly—participates.
An intense, brilliantly conceived graphic memoir announcing the arrival of a new talent to watch.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780063205956
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
A memoir for those who want to laugh through the free fall of their own emotional roller coaster.
A humorous take on dread.
In her amusing graphic memoir, cartoonist Correll turns her emotional roller coaster into a literal, visual experience with her own amusement park of worries that she calls Anxietyland. Within this playful framework, she guides readers through her lifelong struggle with severe anxiety—there are attractions like the “worry-go-round,” “booze cruise,” “downward spiral,” and more, all culminating in finding the help that not only helps her manage the anxiety, but pushes her to do the work in confronting and living with it. To her credit, Correll uses the amusement park concept to dissect points in her life where her anxiety was holding her hostage from leading a fulfilling life. One panel shows Correll’s whimsical approach, as when her cat, Oliver, goes missing. “Why hasn’t he come home?” she thinks, her eyes full of worry, her mouth downturned. “What if he’s dead?” The subsequent image shows her pet peeking into the panel; the accompanying text reads, “Oliver (very much alive).” It’s one thing to read a memoir that breaks down episodes with the benefit of time and knowledge; it’s a completely different experience to see someone living through their depression while hanging on for dear life in “anxie-tea” cups. Readers who hold season passes to Anxietyland will be able to laugh along with the author, but this book will also benefit those coming to terms with a new or future anxiety diagnosis. These readers may, for the first time, be able to put their swirling emotions into a tangible context that makes more sense to them and others. That’s the beauty of Correll’s memoir: The book provides a comical medium lens that can open doors to understanding—rather than a door to the house of horrors.
A memoir for those who want to laugh through the free fall of their own emotional roller coaster.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781668004159
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
An impassioned message of rage and hope.
The author of Persepolis returns with a collection about burgeoning activism in Iran.
In September 2022, the beating and death of Mahsa Jina Amini, an Iranian student arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly, incited a solidarity movement among women and men that spread around the world. To publicize and bear witness to this major uprising, Satrapi has gathered stories, cartoons, and essays from more than 20 artists, activists, journalists, and academics. The author has two aims: “to explain what’s going on in Iran, to decipher events in all their complexity and nuance for a non-Iranian readership, and to help you understand them as fully as possible”; and “to remind Iranians that they are not alone.” Setting the movement in context, Iranian American historian Abbas Milani offers an overview of the political upheavals and revolutions that have led to the current misogynist, repressive regime and the “resolute defiance” that has emerged in protest. As each contributor attests, life under a wrathful dictatorship is consistently frightening and dangerous: “The Islamic Republic ensures its own survival by murdering people. During the successive demonstrations” over Amini’s murder, “several hundred people were killed in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of protesters. Young people were forced to confess under torture.” Women are especially vulnerable. Since November 2022, young students in schools across Iran have been poisoned by toxic gas as part of an attempt to force girls’ schools to close. Protecting the regime falls to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization that answers directly to Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, and for the past four decades has carried out a reign of terror. This collection pays homage to victims and celebrates the dreams of Iran’s determined activists. Other contributors include Joanne Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Paco Roca, and Mana Neyestani.
An impassioned message of rage and hope.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781644214053
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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