Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel

Cruddy is dark. VERY dark. Kidnapping, child abuse, mass murder, drugs, desperation, violent adults - only Lynda Barry could incorporate such dire circumstances and keep the narrative afloat with morbid humor, wry observations, and a wise and world-weary protagonist. Never sentimental, populated with characters strange and cruel, this book is so compelling it had me anxious to leave work, just so I could curl up and devour the rest of the book.

I finished this book feeling raw and stunned and aching for Roberta, wishing there was more of her story to tell.

Harrowing, brutal, chaotic, darkly funny, strange, brilliant, and most of all, unforgettable.

“East Crawford is a road of trash people. Teeth missing and greasy two-color hair on the women and regular greasy hair on the men and all of the people come in two sizes only, very fat or very skinny. And all of them are hacking and all of them are huffing on cigs constantly. It is very hard not to smoke here.”

“It wasn't her fault that the father wandered into her life. Chance blew the father in a lot of directions. He rolled around this way and he rolled around that way, deforming everything he brushed up against.”

It is the early 1970s, somewhere in the southwest, as we are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson. She is hunkered down in her “cruddy” house, in her “cruddy” bedroom, and begins to write her show more memoir. Oh, the stories, she begins to tell...

I know this is a literary cliché, but this is truly a one of a kind book and will not be for everyone. It is dark, disturbing and even grotesque at times. It is a mash-up of Naked Lunch, Paper Moon and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fans of the equally twisted Geek Love will rejoice. There is a steady flow of violence, drug use and parental abuse. It is also beautifully written. There are also impressive illustrations, by the author, that kick off each chapter. I had not read or heard of Lynda Barry before, but what a stunning introduction this is and Roberta is a character for the ages. show less

This is one of the most disturbing and grotesque books I've ever read, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I would have gotten more out of it if only I had at some point done a lot of psychotropic drugs. I can't say I enjoyed this book, but I was kind of amazed by it. I think the story and the characters are on a level of screwed up I am nowhere close to - and by the end of the novel I was really very grateful for that. This is a reading experience of shock and awe, maybe, then. I honestly can't say how much of Cruddy was a little over the top, and how much was just something I've never experienced and so seemed to me a little unrealistic. I didn't relate to the characters at all, nor did I like them, and I had trouble even feeling show more sympathy for them most of the time. Sometimes a really interesting or original thought from one of them would shine through, but it never really redeemed the book for me.

All that being said, I think this is an excellent book, just maybe not for me. It's amazingly gutsy and I've never read anything more emotionally raw and brutal. Cruddy is certainly more worthwhile and original than many of the more critically acclaimed, self-important, "dark" contemporary works.

I loved that the main character wasn't ugly-but-not-really-ugly, or sexy-ugly, or ugly-until-the-makeover or whatever; no, she was described several times as being really, really truly messed up looking. A couple of times in the novel other characters recoil from her countenance in revulsion or horror. There just aren't enough really unattractive protagonists in literature. I kind of think Lynda Barry took all the painfully awkward and horrible feelings of adolescence, intensified them to a radioactive level, and then put them in a literal context, all onto one character. Imagine if things really were as bad as they felt when you were 13? If your insides really were your outsides, every secret fear a boil on your face? If it sounds like it might be intense and a little difficult to read, it is. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no matter what kind of problems you might have... this book will give you a little perspective on how it could be worse.

I'm glad that I read this book, but I can't see myself reading it again for quite a while, and I can't possibly imagine who I would recommend it to. I think if I knew someone that I thought should be reading this book, what I would recommend to them instead would be about ten different kinds of intensive therapy. show less

I hated this book but months after reading it, the character is still with me. Maybe I loved it.

Disturbing in an "I wish I could erase this from my mind" sort of way but kept me reading until the end. After finishing the paperback I hid the book to avoid seeing the haunting cover and eventually donated it to Goodwill just to get it's aura out of my house. Seriously, I'm not superstitious but this thing freaked me out.

I'd recommend reading it. It's genuinely unique, although slightly traumatizing, in a severed penis kinda way.

Recommended for: the teenage girl in you*

it's hard to say why i love this book so much. nope--got it. it's because lynda barry captures the combination of anguish and delusional hope that is particular to adolescent girls who hate themselves and everyone else too but nonetheless maintain the powerful and naive belief that someday they will be loved. and in pursuit of that life-saving belief in love, they will scarifice themselves to almost anything.

sad? yes. but she makes it so funny, too, in spite of all the acid-tripping, kidnapping, child-molesting and murdering.

the plot defies synopsis. just look at the "map" the author provides on the inside cover. (the illustrations are a big plus even if you're not the kind of person who needs show more pictures to stay interested.) but here's the key element/source of my love: our little heroine kicks ass and survives.

* when i say i recommend it for the teenage girl in you, i don't mean in an emotionally-retarded, i-still-read-seventeen-magazine, thwarted-childhood way. i'm talking about that inner fireball of fury that should never die. show less

I adore this book tremendously. Barry is such a genius for writing about child/teenhood, in particular, and she has simultaneously a huge amount of tenderness for her characters and a clear-eyed refusal to pull punches. This is an incredibly dark, funny, overwhelming novel.

Cruddy
I picked this up expecting it to be like much of what I have read of Lynda Barry: heartbreaking, sweet, and immersed in adolescent pain. What I got was a terrifying novel that has elements of all these, but these elements are immersed in the horror-cum-fairy-tale that drives the book.

Roberta Rohbeson is a 15 year old who lives with her mother and sister in a cruddy house, on a cruddy street, in the cruddy part of town, in the cruddiest town in America. The girls' mother leaves them for long periods of time to find a wealthy husband. Julia, the youngest, spends much of her time watching TV. Roberta wanders around the neighbourhood, looking for action. She finds it in Vicky Talluso, a wannabe hippie with a bag full of drugs.

The show more girls meet a hippie-drifter named Turtle, who has an immediate connection to Roberta, and spurs her to tell her horror story. Three years ago, her father left her mother after his butcher shop fails, in pursuit of his father's inheritance. He dressed Roberta as a boy and renamed her Clyde, and they set off on what becomes a murder spree. While the father uses Roberta as a pawn in his killings, he also reminds her constantly that he is likely to kill her at any point with his case full of butcher's knives. What follows is surreal in its events, but reads as both dangerous and true. Fantastic. show less