The Secret to Superhuman Strength

March 15, 2021
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.

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Starred review from March 15, 2021
As a kid, Bechdel ordered a pamphlet with this book's title from an ad in a comic book. It was a complete disappointment, but she was no less convinced that the secret existed and that she would find it. Divided into the decades of her life, this graphic memoir is as much a cultural history of the last half-century as it is Bechdel's story of pursuing physical strength, which it turns out is not so different from surrendering to her art. ""When my mind shuts up and my body takes over, I'm outside the dualistic framework of language."" She goes back even further, looking to the Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Beats in her search for that hard to find, hard to define ""immediate, unreflected grasp of reality."" In full color, with vibrant watercolor washes, Bechdel's comics show her practicing various exercise obsessions--skiing, running, karate, cycling, yoga--writing her books, falling in and out of love, dealing with injuries and other bodily changes. Ultimately, it's an effort to see beyond herself and recognize her oneness with the world. In Bechdel's inimitable storytelling and comics style, as in her much-loved and -lauded Fun Home (2006) and Are You My Mother? (2012), this is sprawling and dense in the best way, and her legions of fans will devour it.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With new books from Bechdel being a once-in-a-decade-or-so event, the publisher has a big print run and lots of publicity planned.

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