Availability:
Library | Call Number | Format | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Cohasset Paul Pratt Memorial Library | SOM | BOOK | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Marshfield Ventress Memorial Library | BIOG. SOM SOM | BOOK | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Quincy Wollaston Branch | B SO51 | BOOK - FLOATING COLLECTION | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Scituate Town Library | BIOG. SOM SOM 2020 | BOOK | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Sharon Public Library | B SOM, BISHAKH | BOOK | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
The meticulous artwork of transgender artist Bishakh Som gives us the rare opportunity to see the world through another lens.
This exquisite graphic novel memoir by a transgender artist, explores the concept of identity by inviting the reader to view the author moving through life as she would have us see her, that is, as she sees herself. Framed with a candid autobiographical narrative, this book gives us the opportunity to enter into the author's daily life and explore her thoughts on themes of gender and sexuality, memory and urbanism, love and loss.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Som (Apsara Engine) turns the conventional transgender memoir on its head in these witty and inventive diary-style autofiction comics, which reimagine episodes of her life played out by her cisgender quasi-avatar Anjali. Anjali acts as both a stand-in for Som before her real-life transition, and her own distinct, fully realized character. Through Anjali, Som recalls her Bengali-American upbringing, friendships and dating in N.Y.C., and how her lifelong love of art gets shunted into architecture to please her parents (nonetheless teaching her to "think expansively and sideways and diagonally"). Between flashbacks, Anjali/Som abruptly departs from a toxic architectural firm to pursue comics full-time, with the typical woes of self-setting deadlines (and lots of cooking and talking to her cat). Som's design choices display her architectural eye, from the precise layout of word balloons to crisp interiors and glowing landscapes. In the chapter "Elevator Pitch," Som recounts meeting Titania, a trans woman, at a party; as they bond and begin a relationship, the emotional consequence plays out differently for Anjali as a character than for Som herself (as she explains in an afterword). In capturing both experiences, Som distinguishes her dual narrative talents. As Anjali remarks, "I've always been this way." Creative nonfiction aficionados and fans of queer comics alike will flock to this literally transformative work. (Aug.)
Booklist Review
Earlier this year, Som debuted her dazzling graphic collection, Apsara Engine, the genesis of which is found here--inseparably entwined with Som's own unique origin story. Som introduces herself in a narrative frame, bordering the memoir's beginning and end: "I wanted to clue you in to what this book is all about," she explains on the first page as she presents Anjali--cleverly, initially, only in pencil outline. "Loathe to draw myself . . . I substituted Anjali, a cisgender Bengali American woman in place of yours truly into these recollections." Anjali lives alone, save for kitty Ampersand. In 2012, she's abandoned her career as a Harvard-trained architect to become a full-time graphic novelist. In her artist-as-a-not-so-young-woman journey, she ventures "back a little ways in time" to her goth teens, multicultural upbringing, her parents' eventual passing (and ghostly cameos), and various relationships both professional and personal. Then, at 48, she "dipped a toe into trans waters" to discover "I finally kind of know who I am." As an artist, Som's architecture training is evident in exquisitely detailed, mostly four-color panels. Raw and revealing, Som's half-century of "being at sea" inspires substantial results.
Library Journal Review
In the opening of this unconventional memoir, Som (Aspara Engine) briefly summarizes her life before transitioning into a woman and introduces readers to Anjali, a fictional avatar whom Som has placed at the center of the somewhat reimagined life events that follow. After departing her job as an architect, Anjali decides to pursue her dream of becoming a professional cartoonist. Chapters alternate between Anjali's early years, born to Bengali parents living in Ethiopia before resettling in New York, and her struggles to complete her first book on her own terms. Along the way, she copes with the death of family members, rages against annoying hipsters, and searches for romance, which she finally finds in a woman named Titania. A final chapter explores Som's experience as a transgender woman more fully and examines how her life and Anjali's diverged as the character took on a life of her own. VERDICT Som's experimental approach to autofiction is intriguing, and her illustration and composition bring a sense of dynamism to short, diary-style chapters that coalesce into a fascinatingly complex portrait.