Self-Esteem and the End of the World

by Luke Healy

Overview

Life is not a race. There are no winners and losers. Immeasurable people are doing better than you…immeasurably worse. You are statistically average.

For over ten years, fictional Luke Healy has invested all of his self-esteem into his career. But two years post publication of his latest book, and suffering the blow of his twin-brother not finding him fit to act as best man, both Luke’s career and self-esteem seem to have disintegrated.

Set against the backdrop of a dangerously changing global climate, with melting ice-caps and flooding cities, Self-Esteem and the End of the World spans two decades of tragicomic self-discovery. From discussing self-help books like Marie Kondo's with the guy you invited over for sex, to summiting a Greek mountaintop while pretending to be working remotely, and a workplace destination murder mystery to a Hollywood revival of Luke’s early work, we see our protagonist grappling with his identity as the world crumbles.

Quietly funny, smartly introspective, and grounded in deeply-felt familial highs and lows, Self-Esteem and the End of the World ponders what happens when the person you are isn’t who you need to be, who you are when nobody’s watching, and ultimately, who can you possibly be at the end of the world?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770467149
Publisher:	Drawn & Quarterly
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Pages:	324
Sales rank:	302,669
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Luke Healy was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, where he also received a BA in Journalism. He has an MFA from the Centre for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, USA. He has published four graphic novels: Americana (And the Act of Getting Over It), How to Survive in the North, Permanent Press, and The Con Artists (published by Drawn & Quarterly). Healy’s work has been exhibited in the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in Manhattan and his clients include The New Yorker, BBC, Vice, and Narratively.

Editorial Reviews

05/20/2024

A graphic novelist consumed by climate anxiety confronts a series of personal and professional setbacks in this inventive if uneven autofiction from Healy (The Con Artists). Luke is gobsmacked when his twin brother Teddy asks someone else to be best man in his wedding. (“Luke is a bit of a mess right now,” Teddy says, explaining his decision to their mother.) The slight, combined with Luke’s creative burnout (he hasn’t published a book in two years) and overwhelming fears of ecological catastrophe, sends him into a tailspin. The story then skips ahead five, 10, and finally 15 years into a speculative future plagued by floods. Having abandoned cartooning to sell life insurance, Luke is perplexed when one of his early comics is optioned for the screen. On a visit to the set, he toys with the idea of sabotaging the big-budget production. Healy balances self-effacing humor with evenhanded introspection over pages of neat, efficient cartooning. His satire of the wellness industry—Luke relies on an app called Head for affirmations voiced (not coincidentally) by his brother—is sharp and touching, and Luke’s bantering relationship with his forthright mother is another highlight. The decades-jumping narrative sprawls, however, and some fanciful conceits (such as the pair of mice playing Greek chorus to Luke’s crisis) fall flat. The result is a playful but unwieldy portrait of a man struggling for self-improvement while despairing over the future. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Luke Healy stumbles through the elegantly drawn frames of Self-Esteem and the End of the World like a gay millennial Harvey Pekar, asking himself the questions currently dogging an entire generation: How can we save the Earth? How can we survive late-stage capitalism? And most importantly: How can we love ourselves? What makes Healy such a joy to read is his canny awareness that these questions aren’t easily answered through pithy self-help psychobabble, nor even through finally getting all the things we want. The answers are lived, not spoken, and look more like having a heart-to-heart with your mam at a crime scene or caring for an AI whale with a glitching fin: in other words, the messy, confounding, lovely business of being human in extraordinary times.” —Rafel Frumkin, author of Confidence

“Full of unexpected laughs; at once both absurd and sincere.” —Sophie Yanow, author of The Contradictions

“Enhanced with a philosophical chorus of mice, seagulls, and cleverly inserted extras... Healy produces a poignant graphic meditation on grasping identity amid relentless unpredictability.” —Booklist

“Full of deadpan humour… a deeply felt exploration of happiness, trust and the lies we tell our friends and ourselves.” —The Guardian Best Graphic Novels of 2022

“The Con Artists feels like a tender little indie film—about friendship and trust between twenty-somethings floundering for whatever it takes to survive into their thirties.” —The Stranger

From the Publisher