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The Secret to Superhuman Strength

The Secret to Superhuman Strength

by Alison Bechdel

Mariner Books ·2021 ·231 pages
Best of 2021
Top of the Pile
Top of the Pile
I Index
77/99
Top of the Pile

78/99

Critics' Rating Index

Top of the Pile

76/99

Readers' Rating Index

n/a

Scholars' Citation Index

95/99

Volume of Reviews

82/99

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About This Book

From the author of Fun Home, a profound 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.


Reviews

"It's the first sign that something new is afoot in a book full of familiar flourishes ..."

Parul Sehgal· The New York Times Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Bechdel doesn't learn to juggle in these pages but she sure throws a lot of balls into the air."

Elizabeth Weil· The New York Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"The author's probing intelligence and self-deprecating humor continue to shimmer through her emotionally expressive drawings, but there is so much going on (familial, professional, romantic, cultural, spiritual) that it is easy to see how she became overwhelmed ..."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Bechdel's on a physical journey, and a mystical one, and a political one too ..."

James Parker· The Atlantic Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Bechdel does finally find some inner calm, conquering symbolic and actual mountains, but the book, which brings us into the present with 2020 election, doesn't end on the expected zen note."

Marissa Moss· The New York Journal of Books Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Alison Bechdel finally turns her gaze on herself, with beautiful results ..."

Chris Barsanti· The Minneapolis Star Tribune Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"...quietly astonishing ..."

Rachel Cooke· The Guardian Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"while Bechdel is adept at wry humor, lightness isn't exactly her thing."

Heller McAlpin· The Christian Science Monitor Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Bechdel's ever-elegant drawings, with nuanced coloring provided by her partner Holly Rae Taylor, perfectly match the tonal shifts of her kaleidoscopic narrative, alternating between soul-searching angst and dry self-satire ..."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Divided into the decades of her life, this graphic memoir is as much a cultural history of the last half-century as it is Bechdel's story of pursuing physical strength, which it turns out is not so different from surrendering to her art ..."

Annie Bostrom· Booklist Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

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