"do not shoot the artist, she was doing her best."

(my dearest, dearest apologies for this insanely late blog. but, i had to get it in to show that i really, truly did have much to say about the book, and enjoyed it, no matter how disturbing it might've been for me.)

that quote at the back of the book hit me so intensely after reading this book through...and through...it's from the brilliant illustrator of the book, antonina gribnikova, but it can also apply to kalamity, the author/artist of the book. as i lifted each page, SO MUCH HAPPENED in such a shortly compacted space -- one where words danced, skirted, or    s    l     i     d    across the black space behind it.

at first, i was met with my own limited knowledge of what graphic memoir is *supposed* to look like. i thought, well, where are her thought bubbles? not ONE? why can't we just call this a really visually disturbingly fucked up cautionary tale/illustration book for kids? then, i remembered weirdos exist in this world for a reason, to give two damns about what some thing is *supposed* to be. there's gotta be a reason we are viewing it as memoir...right?

i opened my brain up more and allowed it to unravel into each drawing. jesus, these drawings. i'll say, volume of books aside, Kalamity J is the complete invert of Alison Bechdel in terms of painting their childhood, their parents, the role of their mother in their lives, and healing old (and much still present) wounds. whereas Alison relies on not just memory, but extrapolating everything that the memory has brought up for her in order to best recreate or distort that memory (numerous author influences, multiple voices speaking at once, text, text, and more text..). Kalamity recognizes that everything in her memory is simply a blur, and takes us with her from there. she relies on the visual to paint these hazy pictures, and gives readers a great sense of disturbulation with each picture (new word! disturbing stimulation? i couldn't think of a word that matched what i felt and that one just was IT.). in short, Alison layers text for meaning, Kalamity layers her pictures (and the figures within them).

for one, Kalamity's memoir doesn't start with her: it starts with her parents. her childhood is marked by distortion before she even arrived into her own body, as her parents were party animals, equipped with alcohol, coke, and pills galore. the first picture is immediately gripping (literally) as a hand emerges from the top of the page and becomes the focal point -- almost -- as it is hard to focus on just one aspect of athe picture. each fingernail is surrounded by forks. this fork is a stunning motif throughout the memoir, as it at first represented the wining and dining of her parents, and later, to describe how similar she was becoming to her mother: "taste on the same fork. Scratching metal, biting time. Bitter." with each section, she changes fonts, sizes, and colors to lend a variety of moods to each, albeit with an everlasting bitter taste on the tongue throughout. Kalamity's poetry slices through and does not waste time getting to the point of just how distorted her parents' lives were; her mother's pain seeped through each line. in addition, she relays how she became her mother, although they have a strained and unresolved relationship.

the reader doesn't even see her face as a child until the second section, as a toy-like figure blocks her face. this could be representing how toys and recreation blocked her from seeing the forms of abuse already surrounding her. in contrast, we know from Alison's over-usage of Winnicott that the child is well aware of these dangers, but is helpless to express their thoughts -- some react outwardly, others run and hide. by the second section, she already has valiums for pupils, and splitting a six pack with her younger brother. also noteworthy is the page before, with the sequences of photos of Kalamity as a child, and how the shading lends an extremely depressing backdrop to her entire upbringing. the pictures are more shaded in black, and appear as black and white negatives of photos. it is already a reversed reality, one that can't be recalled as it originally was as it is too painful to face.

each detail she decides to give about her childhood is loaded and weighed down by pain, numbing the pain with vices, and a consistent cycle of the two, either through her mother or herself. the illustrations fittingly represent this as well. they are configured figures, made up of many parts, each of them playing into the next. even the fork, even pills, are split and re-envisioned. this kaleidoscopic reimagination of her memories is fitting, and feels like a drug-induced haze (given the haze from drug and alcohol use surrounding her); the black pages lend to the void, sinking feeling, or black hole that must have eclipsed her when her mother left after the day of graduation. her words are sparse, but the emotion is enormous in both what she does not say, and ESPECIALLY the paintings. gotta give it up for Antonina, man.
picture 31, of her mother as the "suburban gypsy", the onlookers with grass for eyes...a lot of gouging of eyes. terrifying. that picture on 33 especially? when the mother's mouth was an eye, and her eye was a mouth? WHOA. even if she paints in black and white or color, the emotion grips harshly either way.

i also must say i looked up kalamity's bio on the inkpen mutations website, and her bio is AMAZING.

"Done with the college salad days, she now stands in line at the soup kitchen, one minestrone cup away from Sallie Mae debtor's prison. So have a heart, and buy her books. "

YES.