Alison Bechdel and the Secret to Human Transformation
Acclaimed cartoonist Alison Bechdel shifts gears and takes center stage in her new graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, out now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. While her previous memoirs focused on her parents, in this new book, Bechdel uses physical exercise as the lens through which she looks back on her life.
Bechdel’s bestselling, critically acclaimed 2007 graphic novel Fun Home was her memoir of growing up with her father, a closeted gay man whose frustrations and obsessions affected the whole family. Next came Are You My Mother? (2013), in which Bechdel revisits her relationship with her mother.
In Bechdel tells her life story once again, this time focusing on her lifelong search for transcendence in tandem with a compulsive need for physical exercise. “It feels so good emotionally and psychically to get to that state where I am not trapped
