Susceptible

I read this as a book about survival. About the tension between parental nurturing and parental resentment/alienation. I think it does a beautiful job of telling a story close to the heart, of isolating the moments in childhood that form the adult. The art is wonderful. Her voice is clear.

I heard about this book from a book blogger that I follow. The author died this summer of pancretic cancer at only 35 years of age. This book was published in 2012 and according to Chris Oliveros of her publishing house Drawn and Quarterly it took slightly over a decade to come to fruition. She was working up to the end of her life but who knows if there is more publishable work. That's a shame because this is one of the most powerful graphic novels I have read.

Genevieve chronicles her life from about age 2 to age 18. Her French Canadian mother, who was 19 when Genevieve was conceived, split from her Anglo father at that time. She and Genevieve lived in Quebec, at first in Levis across the St. Lawrence from Quebec City, and then in show more Montreal. For the first few years Genevieve and her mother visited her father in BC during the summer but from ages 5 to 15 Genevieve didn't see her father. Her mother moved in with her boyfriend Amer who never really cared for Genevieve. The pair fought and made up numerous times. When they were getting along there was lots of drinking, smoking and drug use. Her mother, who quite often ignored Genevieve, would start paying attention to her when she was drinking. But the attention was more like what an older sibling would display, than what a mother should. Genevieve, unsuprisingly, had mental health issues such as anorexia, bulimia, anxiety for which she saw quite a few professionals. They helped a bit but, in point of fact, it was distancing herself from her mother that worked best. She was able to reconnect with her father who provided a place to live and practice her art even if he couldn't provide much emotional support. The last pages of the book show Genevieve lying down saying "i'm eighteen. I have all my teeth. I can do whatever I want."

I am no critic of the drawing but others who are praise it highly. What I was particularly struck by was the honesty of the writing and the determination of a little girl to do "whatever" she wanted to do. show less

A semi- or fully-autobiographical sketch of the author's childhood, I guess? Young Goglu is buffeted by her parents' various changing relationships and infidelities and substance abuse issues, with her mother and father ending up basically on opposite sides of Canada and her falling into the chasm between, repeating their mistakes and coming up with plenty of her own as she flails about in life.

A lot of the developments are unfortunately too common in too many people's life stories to really stand out in the crowd. The string of vignettes has some compelling moments but mostly skims past without much impact beyond simple schadenfreude. Perhaps if all the childhood trauma had been connected to how the character/author turned out as an show more adult it would have helped, but the book simply ends when she's 18 and moves out on her own (with all her teeth).

Appalling side note: Castrée sadly died from cancer at 35. Her official web site, https://www.genevievecastree.com as listed on her Goodreads and LibraryThing author pages, was apparently allowed to lapse and has been taken over by another entity that rebranded the page as "Genevieve Castree: Gambling the Smart Way," a blog offering tips for improving your betting strategies. show less

I don't know how to rate this, because I think I liked it and hated it simultaneously. It's depressing and hard to follow, and yet that's pretty much the point, so how can I fault it? Very bleak.

A coming of age tale from Canada. The young protagonist escapes her unhappy family, especially her alcoholic mother.