Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936787288 ISBN 13: 9781936787289

Publisher: Catapult, 2016

Synopsis

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2016 • A Junior Library Guild Fall 2016 Selection

Flying Couch, Amy Kurzweil’s debut, tells the stories of three unforgettable women. Amy weaves her own coming–of–age as a young Jewish artist into the narrative of her mother, a psychologist, and Bubbe, her grandmother, a World War II survivor who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto by disguising herself as a gentile. Captivated by Bubbe’s story, Amy turns to her sketchbooks, teaching herself to draw as a way to cope with what she discovers. Entwining the voices and histories of these three wise, hilarious, and very different women, Amy creates a portrait not only of what it means to be part of a family, but also of how each generation bears the imprint of the past.

A retelling of the inherited Holocaust narrative now two generations removed, Flying Couch uses Bubbe’s real testimony to investigate the legacy of trauma, the magic of family stories, and the meaning of home. With her playful, idiosyncratic sensibility, Amy traces the way our memories and our families shape who we become. The result is this bold illustrated memoir, both an original coming–of–age story and an important entry into the literature of the Holocaust.

About this title

About the Author

Amy Kurzweil's comics appear in The New Yorker and other publications. Her series GutterFACE is hosted by the literary webcast drDOCTOR and her short stories have appeared in The Toast, Washington Square Review, Hobart, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. She teaches writing and comics at Parsons School of Design and at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Amy lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

Gr 7 Up—An intergenerational exploration of identity and family history in graphic memoir format. Jewish comics artist Kurzweil narrates her own coming of age as she contends with her therapist mother and her sometimes distant World War II survivor grandmother. The three women's stories interconnect as the young Amy goes from neurotic child to Stanford University graduate and working artist. Sprinkled throughout is her grandmother's testimony as a Polish Jew who escaped the Warsaw ghetto by pretending to be a gentile. Themes of guilt, Jewish identity, and the complex relationships among daughters, mothers, and grandmothers are central to this work and are expanded upon with humor and honesty. The loose, sometimes sketchy drawings are done in black-and-white and often fill the page, giving the volume a larger-than-life, all-encompassing feel. The images communicate what is often left unsaid by the characters. Joy, horror, connections, love, and family fill the spreads, reflecting the strength of each character. Because of the age of the narrator and most of the subjects, this book is better suited for older readers, especially those interested in the traumatic effects of war on families. VERDICT A good choice for libraries looking to bolster their graphic memoir collections, especially those seeking titles on the Jewish experience.—Shelley M. Diaz, School Library Journal

Edition details

• Publisher: Catapult
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1936787288
• ISBN 13: 9781936787289
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Kurzweil Amy
• Number of pages: 304