| Title | : | Displacement: A Travelogue |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1606998102 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781606998106 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 161 |
| Publication | : | First published February 8, 2015 |
| Awards | : | Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Best Reality-Based Work & Best Lettering (for Lucy Knisley) (2016) |
Displacement: A Travelogue Reviews
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Knisley is one of my favorite cartoonists, and I love that her travelogues have taken off. I remember first finding French Milk in my library’s graphic novel section and wondering what it was all about. Since then, I’ve followed all her work and own all her books. I preordered this book almost a year in advance, but when it finally arrived, I wasn’t able to read it due to my grandma’s decline and sudden death. It hit too close to home, unfortunately. Today, I preordered her next book, Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride, due to be released in May. That prompted me to finally read Displacement. What a treat it ended up being!
Lucy decides to accompany her 90-year-old grandparents on a Caribbean cruise. Getting from point A to point B is only the beginning of Lucy’s concerns, as her grandparents’ health has taken a drastic decline in the last five years. While on the ship, Lucy gets an eyeful of how difficult it can be to be a caregiver and see your loved ones’ health deteriorate. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Knisley’s grandfather is a WWII veteran and she expertly weaves in segments of his war memoir along with memories of her grandparents when they were younger.
She just keeps getting better and better! I hope she never stops drawing and writing. She takes periods of her life and creates a graphic scrapbook for the public to look in on. I wish I was that talented. Also, how amazing to create such vivid memories? If you haven’t yet read any of her graphic novels, you are in for a treat! -
There is something so pleasant and inviting about everything Knisley does! The color, the cute way she depicts herself and her family and her earnest and positive approach to life, whether she is talking about a love affair she has on a book tour or her family. I read every word of this and can say I sorta liked it, just because it is so darned pleasant! If you pick up this book you are hoping it will be a tour through the wine country of France again, yay!
But here it is: Displacement is a book about a cruise she agreed take with her 90 year old grandparents, which was really goodhearted of her to do but made her mainly miserable as she could barely keep up, as they had/have physical and mental challenges that she could barely cope with. Nothing really happens in the book, we get to know no one else as she has to spend all her time with her rapidly declining "grands." And the reflections on aging and mortality or being grumpy about her unhelpful family are not that original or deep. . .
Knisley brings along her Grandpa's world war II diy memoir of his service in WWII and in this one way you get to see his past and get to know just that much a vibrant, committed man who once was strong and clearheaded. We don't get a history of grandma, and not much about either of them that would help us really connect to them and care for them, unfortunately. Because we don't really get to know them except as lost and declining and spaced out nonagenarians, and in the process she sort of turns us into the people she resents on the ship who don't really care about them and sometimes sneer at the accidents and the challenges they pose to others who just really came on the cruise to escape, damn it! NO ONE in this story is someone you want to get to know, the cruise makes us hate people as selfish and boorish, including her family. We become these uncaring people, too, as readers (or maybe its just me, sorry). And a little bit I resent being turned into that (although, sure, Lucy, I am in charge of my own feelings. . .).
So… the final effect of this beautiful artifact isn't all that sweet about her and her "grands," but leads us to think more like her Dad says: 'shoot me if I ever get like that, dude!' No really useful reflections on aging and mortality, except that it sucks to get old.
The cover, where she holds her grandma in a pool, is one of the few nice and warm images of a caring grandkid, and I like her using her grandpa's memoir, and her artwork is warm and accomplished and colorful, but on the whole we feel her relief when she gets back and doesn't have to do this anymore! That makes it sad for me, as a late-middle aged guy. I want more insight and less regret! Help me out here! :) -
Oof. This is a sad and uncomfortable read. More so or at least every bit as reflective and painful as
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?. The illustrations do help keep it light as they have an airy quality to them. Be prepared though to consider your own mortality and that of the ones you love.
I just felt so bad for everyone.
Ugh.
p.s.
I'm thinking that reading this and
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End might put some into a full scale funk. Readers be warned. -
This light but still quietly devastating little travelogue might be the best thing Lucy Knisley has ever written. (Drawn? Created? Mixed media confuses word choice.)
Her first two travelogues (French Milk and An Age of License) were explorations of her own maturation as she saw different parts of the world, but this one is on a whole other level. Her grandparents Allen and Phyllis are 93 and 90 years old respectively, and have signed up to go on a Caribbean cruise with a group from their assisted living facility. They weren't big travelers when they were young and mobile, so this decision perplexes their family. Not to mention both of them aren't capable of handling daily living by themselves, let alone a stressful trip in strange surroundings. None of their children can make it on the cruise, so Lucy volunteers to accompany them as their caregiver on their week long vacation.
What follows is an account of Lucy's frustrations, fears, anger and sadness as she's confronted head on with just how in decline her grandparents (whom she calls her grands) are. Her grandfather is still mostly there mentally, but is severely physically limited, and her grandmother has dementia. Both retired schoolteachers, they have been married for sixty-seven years. Lucy channels her frustrations and loneliness at caring for them in a setting where you're meant to be with family or partners. Her grandmother in particular is challenging because she was extremely stern and emotionally reserved even when she was healthy, and now her fading memory means she experiences setbacks all the time that are just aggravated by being in a place she isn't familiar with.
Amidst all this new scenery as she cares for them, she takes the opportunity to reflect on her relationship with her own parents, what her father's relationship with his parents must have been like (the grands in this book), and her own mortality. Sandwiched in between all of that, she ends every chapter (which each cover a day in the trip) with an illustrated excerpt of her grandfather's WWII memoir. The contrast between the stories he tells of his time in the Air Force as a young man really put into new perspective his current day life.
As for the art itself, it's her best yet. The deceivingly simple style that she favors is perfect for capturing the devastation (and the beauty and humor and joy) of all the smaller moments in life. Her use of line and color is just perfect. It is quite simply a beautiful book in every way you can think of, and I'm so glad I read it. -
4.0 Stars
Lucy Knisley is quickly becoming on of my favourite authors. Her illustrations are always cute and expressive. This particular graphic memoir was very emotional, reflecting on important topics such as aging and caregiving. Knisley writes her memoirs with complete honesty, sharing her imperfections and challenges.
On reread, this one hit extra hard because I'm more aware of aging within my own family.
This is one of my favourite of her books, second only to Relish. I would highly recommend Displacement to people looking for a thoughtful, bittersweet story. -
Spoilers
Lucy Knisley's travelogue/graphic memoir of when she accompanied her elderly grandparents on a cruise. It was interesting and bittersweet to read, it was also somewhat stressful, as it was easy to relate to all the difficulties and pressures Lucy was feeling in looking after her fragile and easily confused grandparents. I felt quite sorry for all of them, the vulnerability of her grandparents and the fear Lucy was going though in being wholly responsible for them was kind of terrifying and depressing.
Loved the inclusion of the grandfather's diary entries about his time as a soldier in WW2, they were fascinating and made for a sobering contrast to his present day self.
Really enjoyed the illustrations. -
This one hit a lot of sweet spots for me, and it was a random find. I wander the stacks of the King County Library System pretty regularly, but I am only looking for something particular about 25% of the time. The rest of the time I go do one of three things: look through the audiobooks; look through the graphic novel section; or try to find random short books in the fiction aisles. I found this book today in the graphic novel section and it was the right book at the right time for me. But it is probably the wrong book for a lot of people, and after you finish this review, I'm fairly confident you'll know if it's for you.
Displacement: A Travelogue has approachable artwork and an easily-followed storyline and speech pattern. (Some graphic novels are really frustrating when you can't tell where your eyes should go or they just feel like work) There was really nothing off-putting about the art. The story, however, might not be relatable for a lot of people, but it's painfully relatable to me. A few years back, author Lucy Knisley, at 27, took her elderly grandparents on a 10-day cruise in the Caribbean. They wanted to go and signed up through their retirement community, but both of her grandparents had health issues, including dementia for her grandmother. Their extended family was worried about them going alone (rightly) so Knisley offered to go for several reasons, most notably to spend time with her grandparents and help out, but also because it might be fun to explore somewhere new and it was an opportunity for another travelogue story. This book is that trip, told from her perspective.
My mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at 61 and it's been a rough few years. I think anyone who has ever spent time being a caregiver for a loved one will feel a connection with Lucy's reactions in this book. It's hard to be patient. There's no reasoning sometimes. There's a lot of frustration with people out in the world who judge things based on their appearances with no further contemplation of what could actually be happening. There's very little rest and there's constant worry. It's uncomfortable to read about and it's uncomfortable to experience. But it's weirdly comfortable to read about other people having the same sorts of feelings. It's cathartic and even though this isn't some earth-shattering book about caring for people, it still made me feel like someone else out there gets it. There are literally thousands (if not millions) of us going through this and it just isn't talked about enough.
Throughout the book, Knisley inserts sections of her grandfather's war memoir, along with accompanying artwork. Some of the stories are pretty gruesome; Others light-hearted. I thought this was such an important part of the book because it's something you just have to do to keep some semblance of sanity, though it is definitely heartbreaking. You have to think about and appreciate all the memories your loved one has made. All the history they've lived and the people they've known and touched. You have to remember them as the person they were but adjust your actions to deal with them as they are now. And, for sure, you have to try to keep a sense of humor about it all because you'll just lose it if you don't.
So yeah, that's that. I'll definitely be reading the rest of Knisley's work. -
The author is known for her graphic memoirs, and this is the third one of hers I've read. In this installment, the 20-something author decides to accompany her 90-something grandparents on a Caribbean cruise. This memoir recounts those 10 days, the ups and downs of traveling with aging grandparents, and the heartbreak of watching those you love get closer to death.
The art remains true to her style of being light, airy, and fun. What I really liked in this installment is that the author explores her complex emotions better than any of her other works I've read. This story was both funny and sad, and I think if the author allows herself to dig deeper as she ages, she'll be one to watch. -
This little book is a graphic (as in "illustrated comic-book style") memoir of a vacation the author took at age 27 with her 90-something-year-old grandparents. The "grands", as she called them, decided to take a cruise with others from their retirement community. The couple's four children panicked and all decided that someone needed to accompany them to supervise. The author was single and between books so, thinking a cruise to the Caribbean during a gloomy New England winter could be a fun experience and a time to bond with the "grands", she volunteered for the job. I'm not sure she fully realized the enormous responsibility she was taking on. Her grandmother had dementia and her grandfather was asthmatic and somewhat incontinent, and both were frail. The trip was stressful and led the author to think about aging and her own mortality, something I doubt many 27-year-olds often consider. I have never had much interest in going on a cruise and this book has pretty much solidified that inclination. Spending a week crowded onto a ship the size of a small city with a lot of selfish, unlikable people did not make a cruise sound very enticing. I'm not sure how much her grandparents really enjoyed the trip either, as their needs were so all-consuming and it was disorienting for her grandmother to be in such an unfamiliar setting. I liked the book, but I wouldn't call it a happy read. It's just life: we are all on a road to the eventual frailties of age, if we last so long. Perhaps getting an up-close view of that reality would make a twenty-something a little more appreciative of her own youth. One more thing I liked about the book was that Ms. Knisley included excerpts from her grandfather's World War II memoirs. It was a little glimpse of the young man he had once been.
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Bought this little gem of a book at Strand's New York just by flipping through the colorful drawings and the theme, and became absorbed, then later finished it during lunch munching on a slice of Joe's Margherita pizza.
At the time, I did not realize that she also wrote/drew Relish, which everyone in my family had enjoyed. She's known for her graphic memoirs! In this installment, the young author went on a cruise with her Grandparents. Both of them were over 90 at that time and her Grandma also suffers from dementia.
I rarely give a book 5-stars unless I could feel the heart of the author. Lucy Knisley is definitely wise beyond her years, observant, funny, loving yet is able to depict all her feelings for the world and the people in it using beautiful heart-warming drawings and her words. Her interactions with her Grandparents were delightful yet sometimes sad to read, as we are all constantly being reminded of the fragility of human life, and unforgiving baggage of old age. I'll be ordering her two other books. -
I adore everything I've read by Lucy Knisley, this is no exception.
This memoir deals with the highs and lows of taking a cruise with her aging grandparents.
One of my favorite things about her work is her honesty. It is at its prime here. -
Even though Lucy Knisely's graphic memoirs are consistently three-star books for me, I have to credit her with having some quality that makes me immediately seek out each one as soon as I learn of its existence.
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Wahhahahahha I feel like sobbing. I'm always like that when I read Lucy's memoirs. They are always about family and I miss mine terribly. I'm giving this graphic novel 5 stars because I can and because it deserves it.
So in this installment of Lucy's life she is embarking on a grand adventure with her elderly grandparents (they are in their early 90's!). None of her relatives wanted to join her grandparents on a Caribbean cruise and so Lucy decides to go. She knew it would be a challenge, but didn't realize how difficult it would be to take care of and I really mean TAKE CARE OF her grandparents. They are both slowing losing their sight, hearing, memory. They get lost easily. Forget things often. And with her grandpa has a bit of a bladder problem. Lucy being the loving individual that she is tries to make the most of it with her sanity intact. It's a week long trip and although it was a bit bumpy it was totally memorable.
The ending killed me. My grandpa is in his 80's and has been diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimers. He wears his military dress suits all the time for no particular reason and always has a dazed look on his face. I'm the only one of his grandkids that he recognizes and although it makes me happy it also makes me terribly sad.
I don't fear death, but knowing that I'll have to see death over and over before my own is just so....I don't know another word better then sad. I will be sad. And it starts with my grandparents.
On a happier note. I loved all of Lucy's illustrations as always and I'm happy she was able to share something like this with her grandparents. -
I enjoyed Lucy Knisley's French Milk and Relish but was not so fond of her first "travelogue,"
An Age of License, which I found shallow and unsatisfying, so I'd decided to pass on her second travelogue, Displacement. But when I won a copy of her newest book, Something New, I decided to go back and fill in my Displacement gap first, and I'm glad I did. This story of Lucy taking a cruise with her ninetysomething grandparents was definitely entertaining, and its glimpses of her grandparents' mortality were moving, reminding me a bit of Roz Chast's Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? While I admit I was dreading the passages from her grandfather's WWII memoir (sorry--I just don't like flashbacks in general), these excerpts (and Lucy's accompanying illustrations) ended up being one of my favorite parts of the book, and a good reminder that everyone has more to them than meets the eye. I do have to say, though, that Lucy herself never comes across as particularly likable to me, and I don't think she's portraying herself that way on purpose. I think her challenge as a writer and artist is to figure out how to express the emotional impact of events in a way that is truthful and that really shows her own complexity as a human being. I don't think she's quite up to the challenge yet, but she's still young. It will be interesting to see what kind of work she does as she matures. -
An incredibly moving and sad book. Lucy Knisley captures perfectly these moments all humans experience that don't really have names: wanting to help someone but also being annoyed at helping them. Feeling alone when surrounded by people. Being uncomfortable no matter what you're doing.
The story is about her time between finishing
Relish and its publication, when she went on a cruise with her two elderly grandparents. Knisley was excited to spend time with them, but also struggled to deal with how elderly and frail they'd both gotten. The story leaves you sympathetic both to Knisley and her grandparents: it seems as hard to be old as to bear witness to it.
The art is beautiful, as you'd expect. I read a digital advance copy of this title, which was entirely in black and white, and I missed the beautiful colors of Relish. The final copies might be different, though, so this isn't the final word on the issue. -
I liked this better than An Age of License, though it was definitely tougher to read.
This graphic memoir follows Lucy as she takes a cruise with her elderly grandparents and all of the care-taking she has to do while on board. There are some weird inconsistencies though (on one page she says she had fun in Europe drinking and then literally two pages later, she notes she doesn't like to drink with strangers) but that aside, this is another solid Knisley read.
As someone who has watched her grandparents age, it was really tough to see it rendered here, though it's done with such compassion and love. The weaving of her grandfather's war stories into this was really smart, too.
I do wish Knisley would go beyond her own life stories. Not that they're not good, but I think she's capable of soooo much more. -
I grew up in a family where play-by-play reports on our days were the norm. We'd take turns talking about what we did all day, highlights and lowpoints, friendships and thoughts. It was just my mom, my dad and me, and I grew up very close with both of them.
Now that I'm an adult, this is the kind of intimacy I crave. I feel most connected to my best friend when she shares about how she spends her days with me, and I downright NEED it from my partner in order to feel fulfilled.
So I have a high tolerance for other people's minutiae.
...Including that of a cartoonist I've never met in person.
I've read all of Knisley's work, probably mostly because this confessional style is her wheelhouse. She lives a life of privilege (similar to mine), is only a few years younger than me, and her graphic novels are literary mirrors to my experience of human existence. I follow her on Instagram (stellar stuff, btw).
And dammit, it feels like she reads my reviews, because the things I nitpick in each of her works get fixed in the next volume. This is full-color slice-of-life, and I identify with her level of intimacy with her grandparents (which is low). I could easily have seen myself doing something like this earlier in my life.
It is heartbreaking watching the moment-to-moment crisis of caretaking someone else's life. And there's something very particularly challenging about managing that when one is having a once-in-a-lifetime or otherwise Rare, Special Experience. Travel throws most of us out of our comfort zone, and even more so when you're struggling with increasingly diminished physical and/or mental capacity. But It's Supposed To Be Fun!
I loved Knisley's honesty, I loved her use of color, I loved the freeform way images floated on the page, I loved the inclusion of photos of the people right when you wanted to see them, I loved the diagram-like packing list, I loved the rising water at the beginning of each chapter.
Call me converted, I'm eating this up.
Read with everything else she's written, plus:
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Special Exits
You'll Never Know, Vol. 1: A Good and Decent Man -
Knisley, 27, accompanies her 90-something grandparents on a cruise and finds herself thrust into the role of constant caretaker. Confronted with their mortality and deteriorating health, she reflects on the people they were and her relationships with them. All the while taking on the overwhelming task of keeping them in line and trying to make the trip enjoyable for them yet still bearable for herself.
Another travelogue/memoir comic from Lucy Knisley. Her trademark brightly colored, soft, friendly, clear art is very accessible and easy to parse. Her story this time around is a bit light.
I expected myself to connect more with this book, having just recently lost all my own grandparents and my father. Unfortunately, I felt more cynically annoyed than anything else. Knisley's privilege somehow shows through more in this book than in her prior travelogues. I didn't feel like the message/meaning in the end justified the story itself as much as I'd hoped. Interspersed excerpts from her grandfather's WWII memoir didn't feel very connected to the main arc. Of course Knisley is eminently likable, understandable, and her experiences resonate with any young adult's experiences with their elderly grandparents, but this story just doesn't go very far beneath the surface somehow, despite her attempts to get there. I think I'm being too critical, but I've really enjoyed Knisley's prior travelogues and hold them up a little above other creators.
A more complete story of aging parents and mortality that I enjoyed a lot more is
Special Exits by Joyce Farmer. -
OK, if I wasn't before, now I am officially a Knisley disciple! I just love this girl!
Lucy's grandparents have signed up for a cruise, and need a caretaker to accompany them, so Lucy agrees to step up and take on the task. She knows it will be daunting, but she is unprepared for the level of dysfunction. Nevertheless, she manages it, day by day - all of the little frustrations and accomplishments. And I don't thin it is a spoiler to say that at the end, Lucy is glad she got to spend time with the "grands" as she realizes their decline, physically and mentally, will prevent them from ever having the same kind of experience they just had. As someone who lives with a very elderly relative, this book really spoke to me. The incremental loss of self, and the accompanying loss of dignity, is hard to bear, but there is still joy in small moments of pleasure and accomplishments.
Lucy does a great job (again) in picking out the moments to illustrate. I especially the way she skewered the annoying people they encounter on the way. She manages the poignancy by interweaving the events of the journey with excerpts from her grandfather's WWII journal which is an inspired narrative choice.
Can't wait for the next one! -
ARC thanks to the publisher!
I will read anything Lucy Knisley does. I adore her gn Relish and have read French Milk since. This is the third I have read of hers. Compared to other memoir type graphic novels I've read, I can relate to Knisley's on a much deeper level.
In Displacement, Lucy goes on a cruise as a caregiver for her elderly grandparents. She experiences ups and downs with them(her grandma's dementia, her grandpa's incontinence)...as well as the painful realization of her own mortality.
#readharder challenge. graphic novel -
Este é um quadrinho ótimo. É um quadrinho sensível, bonito (estética e narrativamente), e envolvente - e, sim, muitas vezes você se pega gargalhando mesmo assim. Lucy Knisley vai acompanhar seus avós em uma viagem de cruzeiro para o Caribe. Mas os avós já têm mais de 90 anos e precisam de cuidados contantes. Eu o li praticamente de cabo a rabo sem parar. Deslocamento, à primeira vista, não parece um quadrinho comum: não tem requadros, não tem sarjetas, contudo, ele trabalha a narrativa visual de um quadrinho autobiográfico de uma maneira fluida. Talvez o quadrinho autobiográfico mais fluido, mais leve que eu já tenha lido (e eles costumam ser pesados e complexos) mesmo com o tema velhice e demência envolvidos. Toda a composição do quadrinho faz com que ele seja adorável. Ao mesmo tempo preciso estender meus parabéns também à Editora Nemo, que tem um catálogo muito bonito de quadrinhos como esse. É uma editora que preza pelo cuidado das suas publicações - o que muitas e a principal do país no segmento não tem tido -, tanto que a adaptação de todas as intervenções gráficas da autora foram traduzidas e adaptadas imageticamente com trabalho e esmero, tornando a autografia da autora neste relato de si em quadrinhos em algo orgânico, inerente, que parece que todo o livro foi feito em português (e não em inglês como originalmente foi). É esse tipo de carinho, que obra passa, que o cuidado editorial passa, que faz com que a Nemo seja uma editora muito bem quista pelo seu público. Diferente das gigantes do ramo que não dão uma pataca para aqueles que a sustenta.
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Displacement: A Travelogue was a moving look at loving older relatives with declining health. Knisley does an excellent job weaving together her cruise experience with snippets from her grandfather's WWII memoir and memories of her grandparents from her childhood. The art style is inviting. I particularly loved Knisely's gorgeous and creative use of lettering.
All of the elements in Displacement: A Travelogue fit seamlessly together to tell a story that I know will stick with me. I can't wait to read more of Knisley's work. -
I love Lucy Knisley's work.
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Another fantastic graphic memoir from an absolute go-to author. In Displacement, Knisley tells the story of chaperoning her very old and frail grandparents on a cruise. It's equal parts hilarious and bittersweet. She doesn't hold back on all the gritty details of life with the elderly. I especially loved her incorporating her grandfather's book about WWII into her writing. The complicated love she has for them and her family is beautifully evident through the pages.
For more reviews and bookish musings visit
http://www.bornandreadinchicago.com/ -
A Caribbean cruise sounds like fun...unless you're there to look after your elderly grandparents on their tour, and confronting the realities of their aging bodies and minds. When the author's grandparents signed up for the cruise, all of their children were surprised, and thought it might be better if someone accompanied them. Knisley, twentysomething, single, and not tied down to a job schedule, volunteered. She knew she'd get to spend valuable time with her grands, but also knew that there would be frustration, confusion, and a large dose of reality. Her grandfather's body is failing, and her grandmother's mind isn't what it used to be. She wanders off. He soils himself. Neither can read like they used to. Knisley brings along the WWII memoir that her grandfather wrote, hoping to ask him about it. While he doesn't remember much, the diary is a reminder of their younger years, and of the pieces of their story that are lost and the questions that will never be answered. Ultimately, this is a story about connection, and how and why we stay connected--even when it's frustrating, even when it hurts. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignantly sad, this graphic memoir will leave you thinking about your own connections and what you do to nurture them.
Get Displacement: A Travelogue from the Denver Public Library
- Becker -
I find myself contemplating age and morality more than other people my age (early 30s)...or maybe we just don't talk about it. According to eastern tradition (that I read somewhere, I don't remember exactly) instead of sanitizing death and thoughts of it from our lives and minds, we need to contemplate deeply, stare it in the face until it doesn't terrify us. Not in a way that's overly morbid, but in a way that gently accepts life as beautiful because it is finite.
Author/artist Lucy Knisley does a fantastic job with this gentle type of deep contemplation in Displacement, a travelogue that follows her stressful, sometimes hilarious, and frequently tear-jerking trip as voluntary caretaker for her 90+ year old grandparents on a luxury cruise. David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is appropriately referenced, though 27 year old Lucy's own experience is made more harrowing by geriatric challenges and the threat of norovirius. While her attempts to bond with her taciturn, senile grandparents seem doomed, each night she reads from (and illustrates) her grandfather's war memoir, which provide a much needed line of connection to the past.
It sounds tragic, and it is and yet...it's not. Recommended.
*Bonus points to the author for working in some Prufrock quotes. You made my day! I laughed so hard at that section. -
This rating/review is based on an ARC of this book from the ARC shelf at my job. Yay library!
I love Lucy Knisley! This is her newest travelogue about going on a cruise with her grandparents.
An Age of License was all about youth and adventure, and this one was much more serious and pensive. I think the two travelogues make really great companions. Knisley also does a good job of keeping herself in check. I think in the hands of a less thoughtful person, her trip might come off as "ooh look what a good person I am" or "wah wah wah I'm and ungrateful brat." She thinks a lot about those two things, and that makes this memoir all the more moving and engaging. Her thoughtfulness is really a huge part of her books, and one really good reason why I like her so much. Her trip was genuinely difficult and heartbreaking, but also ultimately rewarding.
One particularly interesting and lovely thing: she ends each chapter with a little excerpt from her grandfather's autobiography about his military service during WWII. It's such a fascinating view of one of the people she's with, but also a poignant way to end each chapter. -
I'm continuing to work my way through Lucy Knisley's body of work. I just finished her most recent book, Displacement: A Travelogue, and much like An Age of License it was a deliciously quick, fun read with a lot of heart. The other travelogue that she wrote was all about self-discovery as she went on a trip as a (mostly) carefree twenty-something. Displacement was drastically different. In this book, she went on a trip with her elderly grandparents. Her grandfather is incontinent and hard of hearing. Her grandmother has dementia. She's stuck on a cruise ship with them. (It sounds like a trailer for a film when I write it out like that.) Interspersed throughout her narrative of their time on-board are snippets from a book her grandfather wrote several years before about his time in the war. (Those are especially poignant and made up some of my favorite parts.) She is struck by how much they have deteriorated in the time since she saw them last but it's not all doom and gloom.There is beauty also and a sense of happiness that she can spend this time with them. It's a beautiful little book.
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Heartbreaking, evocative, and lovely.
ETA: I hadn't planned to write more, but I don't want to forget why this work had such impact. Watching those you love not only age but also change, even to the point of needing help with basic needs, can be paralyzing, exhausting, and make you want to run away. That the author stepped up to accompany her grandparents on a cruise is remarkable. Seeing what she had to do to protect and care for them, all while showing them sincere respect and trying to preserve their dignity, is nothing short of extraordinary.
The form, Knisley's trademark style of line drawings, light colors, and self-deprecating humor, serves as wonderful juxtaposition to keep the reader invested without being overwhelmed. It doesn't make light of the struggles (neither her grandparents' nor her own), but neither does it wallow in them. If you were to flip through the book, you might mistake it for cutesy, and there are comic moments. There is also helplessness, loss, and acceptance. However, and you'll have to take my word for this, this is no downer. The undercurrent may be somber, but it is ultimately a celebration of life, legacy, and devotion. -
This is an autobiographical graphic novel about a young artist traveling with her elderly grandparents, struggling with taking care of their safety and health as well as understanding and accepting the inevitability and misfortunes of aging.
Maybe it's because I'm too young or have never had similar experiences that I am rating it so low... but no, I don't think so, because my mind was really focused on the presentation of the message. In this book, the main message of the book is obvious, given the inner dialogue and narration. However, there is little demonstration of it with the illustrations, with the brightly colored and disconnected panels, or with the focus, which mainly rested on the author's personal details of the trip, rather than observations of her grandparents and their progression. In fact, the portrayals of her grandparents almost half the time were comically presented.
In addition, there was heavy, intricately written dialogue from her grandfather's memoir and heavy, thoughtful narrations from the author, but they were mixed in with the childlike, colorful illustrations and informal language. It did not mesh well.
