Profoundly Disturbing

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
New York : Abrams ComicArts, 2012
221 p. : chiefly ill. ; 25 cm. 

This is an excellent graphic novel - profound and disturbing.  It revisits one of the most lurid serial killer stories - that of  Jeffrey Dahmer - but manages to avoid being lurid or sensational at all.  Instead it is a compassionate telling of the middle and high school years of the young Jeff Dahmer, told by Derf Backderf, a classmate and erstwhile pal of Dahmer.

The book presents a very honest portrait of the lives of young people in an Ohio community in the mid 1970s.  Backderf is able to retell the rather low humor and insensitive world of high school guys he hangs out with - but with a deft and sensitive touch.  He is also able to subtly convey the outrageous ways in which all the adults of Bath, Ohio ignore the clear signs that Dahmer was an extremely troubled young man - especially his intense alcohol abuse during school hours.

To me the greatest strength of this graphic novel is Backderf's ability to have compassion for Dahmer, and yet not excuse or minimize the horrid crimes that he committed.  Within the telling of My Friend Dahmer, there is never a moment where one feels like Backderf is trying to forgive or excuse what Dahmer did.  However, he is able help the reader consider Dahmer as a human being - one with a history in a real time and a very real place - albeit, one who eventually became a merciless and grotesque killer of over a dozen young men.

Don't Miss This Trane

A Love Supreme: the Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album by Ashley Kahn
New York : Viking, 2002.
xxiii, 260 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

I picked up this book at a library book sale this year and read it as someone who likes jazz, but frankly is pretty ignorant about many aspects of jazz.  The book was a treat in that it is very accessible for the lay person interested in jazz, but also makes many references to various jazz artists, techniques, movements, recording studios, etc.  In this way it expanded my limited knowledge, tempted me to learn more, but managed not to overwhelm me - not bad! Kahn's book really conveys the heady times that the mid-1960s were for jazz - and explains why A Love Supreme is one of the iconic albums in the history of jazz.

I really enjoyed learning about John Coltrane's rise to fame - his rigorous practice habits, his brilliance as a performer and composer, his addiction and recovery from heroin, his work with Miles Davis, his role as leader of the quartet that created A Love Supreme, and sadly, his premature death from cancer in 1967. 

It was especially fun to listen to the album - which I bought from iTunes - while reading this book.  Chapter 3 of the book (p. 83-127) provides a thoughtful analysis of the album, section by section, so it serves in effect as a listener's guide. Though not necessary, I'd definitely recommend that readers get their hands on a copy of Coltrane's album to enjoy while they read this fine book.

Another Great Graphic Novel

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
232 p. : chiefly ill., maps ; 24 cm.

Alison Bechdel has been creating comics for many years for her syndicated Dykes to Watch Out For which has a small but significant following.  Her book Fun Home, which had both popular and critical success is likely to bring her work to a much wider audience - something she apparently was not prepared for.

The praise for this work - which calls to mind another standout graphic novel Stitches - is well deserved.  It is a rich memoir/graphic novel which is subtle and nuanced as it tells the story of Bechdel's complex, rich, and troubled family of origin - led by parents whose frustrated dreams and repressed sexuality created an intense environment of simmering anger and emotional detachment.

The amazing thing about Fun Home is that in addition to illustrating the conflicts and tensions in her home,  Bechdel is able to convey what a rich and tangled upbringing she had.  Her father and mother were both aspiring intellectuals/artists and much of the power of her work lies in her ambivalence toward the legacy of her family - and her refusal to either condemn or condone the shortcomings of her parents.  Her memoir also deserves praise the ways in which it circles around themes and events the story instead of following a singular straightforward narrative and the ways in which she finds echos of her upbringing in film, myths and novels.

I would highly recommend this graphic novel to students who are interested in a multi-layered, complex coming of age stories and family stories dealing with secrets, conflict and even death - since her father's apparent suicide (possibly an accident) is at the heart of this fine work.  The novel does deal with some mature emotional and sexual issues, so it might not be suitable for immature readers.