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A Family Tragicomic
Jun. 5th, 2020 10:53 amThis morning my mother was moved to a rehab facility (the Shepard Center in Atlanta) to help her regain her mobility after a near-fatal heart attack and stroke.
After the horrible experience I had when I drove down to Georgia to visit for Christmas last year, I told myself I was done with her and her bullshit. No more, I said to myself.
Clearly that resolution didn’t stick.
I’ve been rereading Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home to help process the weird and complicated feelings I have about my mother. Unlike Bechdel’s father, my mother isn’t gay. In fact, she's probably the straightest person I’ve ever met. She loves cisgender men and hates everyone else, and “everyone else” most definitely includes me.
I don’t write about my family much, at least not without the aid of a heavy lens of fiction. Since they’re all so outside the “normal” range of human experience, I learned early on that no one believes me if I tell the truth. (This story is a good example of what I’m talking about.)
I love autobio comics, and I would love to write them, but I don’t even know where to begin. Like…
( Read more... )
I’m not sure how to turn any of this into a story that would make a good comic. It’s way too dark, and I’m still too angry and upset to be able to think of an interesting and clever point of entry into a structured narrative.
Also, having just left my job and moved to a different city, I resent having to pay close to two months’ rent to take care of my mother’s animals and have her house cleaned during her hospital stay.
After the horrible experience I had when I drove down to Georgia to visit for Christmas last year, I told myself I was done with her and her bullshit. No more, I said to myself.
Clearly that resolution didn’t stick.
I’ve been rereading Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home to help process the weird and complicated feelings I have about my mother. Unlike Bechdel’s father, my mother isn’t gay. In fact, she's probably the straightest person I’ve ever met. She loves cisgender men and hates everyone else, and “everyone else” most definitely includes me.
I don’t write about my family much, at least not without the aid of a heavy lens of fiction. Since they’re all so outside the “normal” range of human experience, I learned early on that no one believes me if I tell the truth. (This story is a good example of what I’m talking about.)
I love autobio comics, and I would love to write them, but I don’t even know where to begin. Like…
( Read more... )
I’m not sure how to turn any of this into a story that would make a good comic. It’s way too dark, and I’m still too angry and upset to be able to think of an interesting and clever point of entry into a structured narrative.
Also, having just left my job and moved to a different city, I resent having to pay close to two months’ rent to take care of my mother’s animals and have her house cleaned during her hospital stay.
