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Summary
Summary
An intimate, clever, and ultimately gut-wrenching graphic memoir about the daily decision women must make between being sexualized or being invisible--now in paperback
In Commute , we follow author and illustrator Erin Williams on her daily commute to and from work, punctuated by recollections of sexual encounters as well as memories of her battle with alcoholism, addiction, and recovery. As she moves through the world navigating banal, familiar, and sometimes uncomfortable interactions with the familiar-faced strangers she sees daily, Williams weaves together a riveting collection of flashbacks.
Williams recollections highlight the indefinable moments when lines are crossed and a woman must ask herself if the only way to avoid being objectified is to simply cease drawing any attention to her physical being. She delves into the gray space that lives between consent and assault and tenderly explores the complexity of the shame, guilt, vulnerability, and responsibility attached to both.
Praise for Commute
"This sharp and splendidly drawn memoir will strike a strong chord in the current moment. " -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
"One day's commute offers time for the author to reflect on sexual predators, alcoholism, and the experiences she understands better now than she did at the time. . . . A catharsis for the author that fits perfectly within a pivotal period for society and culture at large." -- Kirkus Reviews
"This is welcoming, soul-baring, stunningly interconnected, and very discussable." -- Booklist
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Williams (The Big Fat Activity Book for Pregnant People) chronicles the everyday humiliation she feels as a female in this frankly illustrated war cry. The events she recounts are simple: Williams wakes, dresses, takes the train, works, comes home, and cares for her infant daughter. Throughout, she delves into flashbacks of trauma, frustrated fury, experiences with substance abuse and sobriety, self-criticism, and, ultimately, triumphant discovery through friendship and the love of other women and their creativity. In loose-but-evocative, spare lines, often depicting only the barest contours of the body, Williams identifies the persistent harm done to women, through everything from ogling to rape, how that harm is internalized, and how women cope. There is blackout alcoholism for "oblivion junkies," men to lose one's self in, and the renewal of self that motherhood can bring. Williams does not shy away from her shame. She is also angry, and she knows she is not alone, and that brilliant anger is where the book becomes truly great. Her confidence--and literal straight gaze at the reader, full of vulnerability and challenge--makes this volume a critique, a lament, and a sigh. As Williams elegantly argues, many women need all three. This sharp and splendidly drawn memoir will strike a strong chord in the current moment. (Oct.)
Booklist Review
On one level of Williams' memoir, she wakes up, takes the train into Manhattan, goes to work, and heads home again. Over the course of this day, however, that scope expands: spurred by a man's unwelcome stare or a tiresome conversation, she brings readers to several memory-planes, revisiting ex-boyfriends, past sexual trauma and shame, her alcoholism, and how these things all combined for her. Her digitally drawn grayscale illustrations are powerful in their minimalism and sometimes funny, with high contrast and occasional bursts of bright color adding to what's already a very alert reading experience. All-caps text is light on the page, except for when it's the spine-tingling focus. In white text on an all-black page: ""Show me a narrator less reliable than one who seeks to maintain his own power and control."" Williams recalls finding sobriety and fulfilling work and becoming a mother. Ultimately, she finds the message and the means for this book through conversations with other women who encouraged her to craft her story and craft she did. This is welcoming, soul-baring, stunningly interconnected, and very discussable.--Annie Bostrom Copyright 2019 Booklist