★ 03/08/2021
Bechdel (Are You My Mother?) makes a welcome return with this dense, finely wrought deep dive into her lifelong fixation with exercise as a balm for a variety of needs: “My reasons... run the gamut from the physical to the mental to the emotional to the psychological to the more numinous.” Progressing chronologically, from the 1960s through to the 2020 pandemic, Bechdel’s early, whimsical efforts to adopt various regimens such as running and karate (at a “feminist martial arts school”) bloom in adulthood into often-obsessive attempts to achieve enlightenment. Eventually she begins to suspect that her fanatical focus on a variety of exhausting workouts offers her a way to avoid difficult issues, particularly in her relationships: “I’d managed dad’s death so well because I hadn’t managed it at all. Who knew you were supposed to have feelings!” Throughout, Bechdel conjures the histories of literary figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Jack Kerouac, and Adrienne Rich, all of whom wrote about their own attempts at inner transformation with philosophical movements such as romanticism and transcendentalism. 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. At the close of each chapter, the colors disappear and are replaced by a warm gray wash, symbolizing seemingly a hope for harmony and oneness. Grappling with the desire for spiritual transcendence in the most intensely personal terms, Bechdel achieves a tricky—even enlightening—balance. Agent: Sydelle Kramer, Susan Rabiner Literary Agency (May)
Color? It’s the first sign that something new is afoot in a book full of familiar flourishes [including] the figure of Bechdel herself, drawn as a bit of a cross between Tintin and Waldo, vibrating with anxiety, doing her best to flee herself on bike or skis or simply afoot….It’s [an] accumulating ease we feel in this book—a supple, loose-limbed grace; an absence of fear that translates into simplicity, discipline and modesty.” — New York Times
“Astonishing . . . utterly absorbing” — The Atlantic
“[Bechdel] set out to write a light book about her lifelong commitment to exercise, including stints as a cyclist, climber, skier and yogi. As usual, her story and art are about so much more—the realities of aging, the quest for transcendence and the drumbeat of mortality.” — Washington Post
“[Bechdel’s] work is known for its unique style of combining incisive insight, humor, emotional resonance, queer ethos, and visually stunning illustration. She brings all of that to her new graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength.” — Shondaland
2021-02-24
The acclaimed graphic memoirist returns to themes of self-discovery, this time through the lens of her love of fitness and exercise.
Some readers may expect Bechdel to be satisfied with her career. She was the 2014 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, and her bestselling memoirs, Fun Home and Are You My Mother? both earned universally rave reviews, with the former inspiring a Broadway musical that won five Tony awards. But there she was, in her mid-50s, suffering from “a distinct sense of dread” and asking herself, “where had my creative joy gone?” Ultimately, she found what she was seeking, or at least expanded her search. In what she calls “the fitness book,” the author recounts, from her birth to the present, the exercise fads that have swept the nation for decades, from the guru-worship of Charles Atlas and Jack LaLanne through running, biking, hiking, “feminist martial arts,” yoga, and mountain climbing. “I have hared off after almost every new fitness fad to come down the pike for the last six decades,” she writes. Yet this book is about more than just exercise. Bechdel’s work always encompasses multiple interlocking themes, and here she delves into body image; her emerging gay consciousness; the connection between nature and inner meaning; how the transcendentalists were a version of the hippies a century earlier; and how her own pilgrimage is reminiscent of both Margaret Fuller and Jack Kerouac, whose stories become inextricably entwined in these pages with Bechdel’s. 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—and how she had to learn to accept the looming mortality that awaits us all. In the end, she decided to “stop struggling,” a decision that will relieve readers as well.
More thought-provoking work from an important creator.
Color? It’s the first sign that something new is afoot in a book full of familiar flourishes [including] the figure of Bechdel herself, drawn as a bit of a cross between Tintin and Waldo, vibrating with anxiety, doing her best to flee herself on bike or skis or simply afoot….It’s [an] accumulating ease we feel in this book—a supple, loose-limbed grace; an absence of fear that translates into simplicity, discipline and modesty.
[Bechdel] set out to write a light book about her lifelong commitment to exercise, including stints as a cyclist, climber, skier and yogi. As usual, her story and art are about so much more—the realities of aging, the quest for transcendence and the drumbeat of mortality.
Astonishing . . . utterly absorbing
[Bechdel’s] work is known for its unique style of combining incisive insight, humor, emotional resonance, queer ethos, and visually stunning illustration. She brings all of that to her new graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength.
[Bechdel] set out to write a light book about her lifelong commitment to exercise, including stints as a cyclist, climber, skier and yogi. As usual, her story and art are about so much more—the realities of aging, the quest for transcendence and the drumbeat of mortality.
