Qualification: A Graphic Memoir in Twelve Steps (2019)

by David Heatley

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41	2	614,017	(3.25)	3
"From the author of My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down, a new graphic memoir brimming with black humor, that explores the ultimate irony: the author's addiction to 12-step programs. David Heatley had an unquestionably troubled and eccentric childhood: father a sexually repressed alcoholic, mother an overworked compulsive overeater. Then David's parents enter the world of 12-step programs and find a sense of support and community. It seems to help. David, meanwhile, grows up struggling with his own troublesome sexual urges and seeking some way to make sense of it all. Eventually he starts attending meetings too. Alcoholics Anonymous. Narcotics Anonymous. Overeaters Anonymous. Debtors Anonymous. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. More and more meetings. Meetings for issues he doesn't have. With stark, sharply drawn art and unflinching honesty, Heatley explores the strange and touching relationships he develops, and the truths about himself and his family he is forced to confront while 'working' an ever-increasing number of programs. The result is a complicated, unsettling, and hilarious journey--of far more than 12 steps"--… (more)

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This book was exhausting to read. I truly began to loath the author halfway through for his self-righteousness, narcissism, and cringe-inducing faith. I have never read a more self-centered memoir and that is saying something given the nature of the genre. I gave this three stars because I did learn some interesting things about AA and I enjoyed reading about his dis functional family (

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TAndrewH | Dec 28, 2020 |

A narcissist creates a monumentally narcissistic work about his narcissism. The back cover tells me this is hilarious, but all I felt was anger and exhaustion as I read. But then I decided, fuck that asshole, I'm not letting him have that kind of power over me, and let it go. He can try to live with his crap; I don't have to.

Seriously, though, his wife could gun him down in the street in front of a hundred people tomorrow, present this as Exhibit A at her trial, and walk out a free woman from any court in the land. (

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villemezbrown | Nov 28, 2019 |

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Canonical title

Qualification: A Graphic Memoir in Twelve Steps

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

New York, New York, USA

Oberlin College, Ohio, USA

San Francisco, California, USA

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

for Rebecca
I can't believe we survived this.

First words

1979
I don't believe in hell.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Crumb, Robert

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

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"From the author of My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down, a new graphic memoir brimming with black humor, that explores the ultimate irony: the author's addiction to 12-step programs. David Heatley had an unquestionably troubled and eccentric childhood: father a sexually repressed alcoholic, mother an overworked compulsive overeater. Then David's parents enter the world of 12-step programs and find a sense of support and community. It seems to help. David, meanwhile, grows up struggling with his own troublesome sexual urges and seeking some way to make sense of it all. Eventually he starts attending meetings too. Alcoholics Anonymous. Narcotics Anonymous. Overeaters Anonymous. Debtors Anonymous. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. More and more meetings. Meetings for issues he doesn't have. With stark, sharply drawn art and unflinching honesty, Heatley explores the strange and touching relationships he develops, and the truths about himself and his family he is forced to confront while 'working' an ever-increasing number of programs. The result is a complicated, unsettling, and hilarious journey--of far more than 12 steps"--

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