This is kind of a strange book-- on the one hand, it is definitely Kupperberg, in the chilly style of the writing; the desire that animates his funny strips to make you stop and stare is on display here, too, only it doesn't completely suit the subject matter.... the book needs for K to go deeper, to really dig into what we are seeing, and this book doesn't quite do that. I read that he was doing a memoir and I thought, wow, that will require a different set of skills, and I don't think those different skills are on display here.

On the other hand, for all of Kupperman's idiosyncratic voice, technique, and visual style, this book doesn't ever move out of the shadow of Maus and Fun Home, two other books interested in the artist's relationship to the trauma of their parents lives. This reads, at times, like it was those books more than anything in Kupperman's own life that drives him on this narrative, that other people have made a success in the form with this kind of story, and he has one, too. It's not like the Quiz Kid story isn't a fascinating one, and one that affected his father the way the Holocaust affects Speigelman's dad. It is a wild story-- but Kupperman, for me, didn't crack that story open the way it needed to be, either visually through a potent metaphor like the cats and dogs, or as a story that can dwell in that ambiguity.

I follow Kupperman on twitter. I know he put his heart into this and I know he's genuinely disappointed this book wasn't a bigger success. I want that for him, too. But this book is good but not better than that.