Spent: A Comic Novel

"Best known for her graphic memoir Fun Home, Alison Bechdel has created a new “comic novel,” part self-parody, part ornate diatribe, that tracks a character in midlife (with the author’s same name) living with her partner on a goat farm in Vermont. The book’s cast of characters go about their lives against the backdrop of an exhausting cultural and political landscape. Sound familiar? Underneath the missives, jokes and Marxian headlines, the warmth of Bechdel’s storytelling is undeniable, and comforting. In an era calling for reinvention, Bechdel has produced her own inimitable genre."