The Secret to Superhuman Strength
| Category: | Book |
| By (author): | Bechdel, Alison |
| Subject: | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs |
| COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / LGBT | |
| COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Literary | |
| FICTION / Graphic Novels | |
| Publisher: | HMH Books |
| Published: | May 2021 |
| Format: | Book-hardcover |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Size: | 10.00in x 7.50in |
- Our Price:
- $ 35.00
- Availability:
- In stock
Additional Notes
| From The Publisher* | From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times Comics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author's own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others. A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times. |
| From The Publisher* | From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times |
| Review Quote* | " . . . An effort to see beyond herself and recognize her oneness with the world. In Bechdel's inimitable storytelling and comics style, as in her much-loved and -lauded Fun Home (2006) and Are You My Mother? (2012), this is sprawling and dense in the best way, and her legions of fans will devour it."-Booklist, starred review |
| Biographical Note | ALISON BECHDEL's cult following for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For expanded wildly for her best-selling memoirs, Fun Home, adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical, and Are You My Mother? Her many honors include being named a MacArthur Fellow and Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont. |