Paperback

hooray

Hi!

Sorry I️ didn’t post last week. Once my dad, who is very very neat, left a towel on the floor of his college dorm room, and he talks about it to this day as an act of liberation. I️ feel that way about missing a self-imposed deadline. So, I’m not sorry. I’m bragging. I️ was on vacation and I️ was suffering by not working, and I’m proud of myself.

Next Tuesday my book Passing for Human, the graphic novel I️ wrote slowly a decade ago (published in 2018), and which I️ think of as my only real real project in some ways — no assignment, self-imposed or otherwise, just my story the way I️ think of stories, honest and not perfectly processed, WILL be OUT in PAPERBACK. I’m so proud of it and so wistful of the way I️ worked on it, obsessively, emotionally, secretly.

It’s hard to put into words — that’s why it had to be made as a book — but I️ would say it’s a searching story about femaleness, art-making, and neurodivergence (what I️ call autism) and the relationship between a mother and a daughter badly in need of a shepherd - but there’s always more to say about that. Every time I️ look at it I’m astonished by how daring it is and frustrated by how oblique it is. It’s me.

Characters, besides (my cockeyed version of) my mom and me, include my childhood dog, Pepper, and the curved house my mom designed in Chester, NY, where I️ grew up. Also a man I️ had an unhinged crush on; I️ hope he forgave me somehow. Also, my and my parents’ Jewish upbringing - schools, summer camps.

Here’s the beginning. And here’s a link to preorder (or better yet, ask for it at your local bookstore - or mine; I️ could sign it if you order from here and specify a signature/message in the order notes). As you’ve heard, preorders help a lottt.

As always, buy yer letterpress prints here, or at Fish’s Eddy, which also sells mugs. And here’s my Instagram absence, please follow.

For paid subscribers, I’m brewing a class/get-together - hopefully a regular thing - but I’m giving myself a couple weeks to get back on my feet; my partial maternity leave ended yesterday and I’m feeling feral and unable to interact.