Good Eggs: A Memoir

by Phoebe Potts

Overview

In the tradition of the acclaimed graphic memoirs Fun Home and Persepolis comes a funny, insightful, and deeply moving book about learning to appreciate what we have when we can't seem to get what we want.

For Phoebe Potts, the path to maternal fulfillment has not been easy. All her friends seem to get pregnant, but she can't conceive for all her trying. As Phoebe and her husband, Jeff, navigate the emotionally and physically fraught world of fertility experts, she takes stock of what matters in the rest of her life and reflects on the winding journey to her true calling as an artist. From her days as an amateur union organizer in Texas to her spiral into paralyzing depression in Mexico; from her soul-shrinking, all-for-the-benefits stint as an administrative assistant at a fancy university in Cambridge to her flirtation with rabbinical school, Phoebe illuminates the bumpy road to vocational and personal contentment. Her wonderful, hilarious, and utterly original drawings capture the truly good eggs—an unforgettably nutty mother; a devoted husband; a team of therapists, hairdressers, and landladies; friends; and a sidekick housecat—that together expand the definition of what really makes a family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062042798
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/21/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	87,027
File size:	41 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Phoebe Potts grew up in Brooklyn and then on Martha's Vineyard. A graduate of Smith College, she received her MFA from the Maine College of Art in Portland. She lives with her husband, the artist Jeffrey Marshall, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Phoebe Potts grew up in Brooklyn and then on Martha's Vineyard. A graduate of Smith College, she received her MFA from the Maine College of Art in Portland. She lives with her husband, the artist Jeffrey Marshall, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

First-time graphic novel creator Potts offers readers a sprawling and lovable memoir about her and her husband’s attempts to become parents. Documenting travails with insurance companies, doctors, family members, and her own body, she shows us the down and dirty details with warmth and humor. While the quest for parenthood structures the book, Potts makes plenty of detours into her past with tales of organizing uncooperative union workers in Texas; learning Spanish and trying her darndest to mix with workers in Mexico; experiencing paralyzing depression back at her parents’ home in Martha’s Vineyard. Potts also writes about her discovery and exploration of her faith. At one point, considering becoming a rabbi, she visits several rabbis; the encounters are funny and poignant and help her along the path of figuring out what truly matters to her. The loopy minutiae of her drawings, in which bodily functions are helpfully anthropomorphized, household pets project personalities as strong as those of the humans around them, and characters crowd the pages in a friendly cacophony of stories, is equally absorbing. Good Eggs joins other graphic novel memoirs about women’s lives, like Persepolis and Carol Tyler’s You’ll Never Know; a wonderfully told and deeply human story. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

So honest, so funny, so smart. Good Eggs is full of great lines, both written and drawn.

Hilary Price

Simply put Good Eggs is a good read. . . . [Potts] is an engaging storyteller.

Vineyard Gazette

Good Eggs is mostly funny and sometimes sad, but always honest, intelligent, and completely involving.

Roz Chast

Serious, observant, heartfelt, and hilarious. . . . Good Eggs will have special appeal for couples undergoing fertility treatments, but in 288 pages of black-and-white comic strip images, Potts takes on far more.

Northshore Magazine

Funny! Laugh out loud! Like so many women, Phoebe Potts is having a hard time getting pregnant. But her take on it is so original, clever, and insightful that it will bring a knowing smile to anyone who’s been there—and even those who haven’t.

Mary Jordan

[An] often hilarious, sometimes tender story. . . . [with] lively drawings and spot-on humor . . . The drawings add layers of wit and insight to Potts’ life and its tangents.

Gloucester Times

Very funny, very sad, very wise."

Anita Diamant

Phoebe Potts has created a book that is soulful without being sappy, funny without being phony, and smart without being smart-ass.

Paul Karasik

Good Eggs is at times hilarious, at times poignant, and always successful at conveying the many layers of coping with infertility, from how to handle friends’ pregnancies and what to share with families to how to manage depression and maintain a healthy marriage.

Tablet

Good Eggs provides a more-than-welcome respite for individuals and couples struggling with infertility. Phoebe Potts has accomplished what I have been waiting for, for a long time—an honest, bittersweet, and wonderfully humorous look at the emotional impact of the infertility process.

Alice D. Domar

Potts’ memoir recounts her efforts to become pregnant but encompases much beyond exploring her desire for motherhood. . . . Potts delievers a highly developed revelation of the layers, beyond coping with being a parent or not, that make up her identity.

Booklist

Potts tackles [this] sensitive subject with honesty and humor.

Boston Globe

Potts’ cute, cartoon-like drawings tell the story of her quest to conceive a baby. You’ll giggle, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love with the kooky-but-endearing characters.

Marie Claire

Potts’ memoir recounts her efforts to become pregnant but encompases much beyond exploring her desire for motherhood. . . . Potts delievers a highly developed revelation of the layers, beyond coping with being a parent or not, that make up her identity.

Booklist

Potts and her husband are trying to conceive a baby, but it isn't easy. Doctors, family members, pets, and insurance reps all get involved in their quest for parenthood, which she intercuts story-wise with flashbacks about organizing uncooperative union workers, considering becoming a rabbi, and suffering crippling depression at her parents' home. Although basically a tale of frustration and sadness, Potts's account incorporates plentiful humor and quirky life detail into an enjoyable and deeply human memoir. For adult collections.

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