Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Two Real-Life Dysfunctional Families Makes for Great Reading (and not A. Burroughs's)

Jesus Land: A Memoir. And you thought your family was dysfunctional. That author Julia Scheeres is able to come out of this sane is a testament to her character. Her parents were complete nuts whose idea of parenting was to issue orders through the house intercom (providing the only interruption in the Christian music usually on the system). This, at times harrowing, book covers about 10 years during which white Scheeres and her adopted black brother lived in rural and race-ignorant Indiana and then a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. Of course, the kids didn’t need reforming, the parents did.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun House is a dark comedy in the form of a graphic novel. I was a bit hesitant about picking this one up as I’m not a huge fan of graphic novels, but in the 80’s and early 90’s I was a big fan of her “Dykes to Watch Out For” comic strip This is her first graphic novel and it’s a polished, mature book that has all the engagement and depth of a traditional novel, or perhaps, a novella.

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