A PROS AND CONS LIST FOR STRONG FEELINGS

A nonbinary cartoonist reflects on queerness, a quirky but loving relationship with their parents, and the untimely death of their mother.

Reimagining their family as penguins and their friends as a menagerie of birds, Colorado-based cartoonist Betke-Brunswick depicts 10 life-changing months in their teens when the life they knew was suddenly changed forever when their mother, Mumin, was diagnosed with cancer. At first, the author’s grieving disbelief led them to seek solace in childhood memories and jigsaw puzzles. Mumin declined slowly but never once felt sorry for her condition. When she saw a friend also suffering from cancer wheel by on a walker, she joked that “maybe [we] should race each other.” Wearing a portable chemotherapy pack she nicknamed Baby Igor, she went to the hairdresser for a “short and tidy” haircut rather than a wig or scarf to hide her hair loss. Betke-Brunswick also recalled her encouragement of their artistic pursuits and the gently accepting way Mumin revealed how she was aware of the author’s sexuality. In her view, it was up to them to educate the loving but short-sighted father, who “thought we were raising a lesbian,” about nonbinary identity. Eventually, he accepted Betke-Brunswick for who they are, at one point calling himself a “pretty sensitive, femme, heterosexual, bear-type guy” in an awkward show of solidarity. Nearing the end of her life, Mumin urged Betke-Brunswick to spend a semester abroad in New Zealand even if it meant never being able to see her again. The simple, sketchlike, pen-and-ink images that recall a child’s drawings add an extra level of poignancy while also bringing humor to an at-times difficult story about coming out during a time of profound personal loss. This sensitive, humorous memoir is as much a celebration of difference as it is of the healing and enduring power of family love.

Heartwarming reading.