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
