Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir

By Nicole J. Georges

The acclaimed debut graphic memoir by the author of Fetch: “a beautiful and innovative portrait” of young adulthood and confronting family secrets (NPR). 
 
When Nicole Georges was two years old, her mother told her that her father was dead. When she was twenty-three, a psychic told her he was alive. Her half-sister, saddled with guilt, admits that the psychic is right and that the whole family has conspired to keep him a secret. Sent into a tailspin about her identity, Nicole turns to radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for advice.
Packed cover-to-cover with heartfelt and disarming black-and-white illustrations, Calling Dr. Laura tells the story of what happens to you when you are raised in a family of secrets, and what happens to your brain—and heart—when you learn the truth from an unlikely source. Part coming-of-age and part coming-out story, Calling Dr. Laura is “a tragicomic graphic memoir with a stunning indie aesthetic” (Bookslut).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9780547834566

Nicole J. Georges

Nicole J. Georges is a professor, writer, and illustrator, who has been publishing her own zines and comics for twenty years. She is the author of the Lambda Award-winning graphic memoir Calling Dr. Laura and the diary comic Invincible Summer. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Reviews for Calling Dr. Laura

[jennybeast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Vivid depiction of Portland, lush illustrations, all about weird family dysfunction (which I think every family has to some extent, but this one is more than most). Compelling, but sad -- sorta hopeful too, but life is life and is often confusing and disappointing.

[piemouth · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Nicole finds out from a psychic that the father she thought was dead is actually alive and her family has been lying to her all this time. It's a great premise that got me to buy this, but the actual story isn't that interesting. She jumps around from her troubled childhood with an abusive mom and stepfathers, her current unhappy relationship, and eventually the story of who her father really was and why it was a secret. The drawings are in the naive style that I like from Aileen Kominsky-Crumb but find annoying by anyone else, though she can really draw faces well.

[wattsian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collage of heavy writing, but heavily punctuated with far better action and pacing than 99% of other autobiographical graphic novels. A rare star in a bloated sub-genre. Marvelous.

[amwsmith-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Uh this was really good and now I have all these feelings.

[pussreboots · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir by Nicole J. Georges is on the American Library Association's 2014 Rainbow list. It's a memoir told as a graphic novel of a Nicole George's childhood and early adulthood.There are two competing threads to this book. The first is Georges's attempt to locate her father, whom she had been told had died before she was born but hadn't. The second is her coming to terms with her identity and her sexual orientation.Unfortunately for me, I read this book as a library book and I tend to rush through them because of the ticking down of the due date. Calling Dr. Laura at least for me, wasn't a book that can be quickly read. Part of my problem was keeping characters separate in my head because of the switching between narrative threads and the very similar character design for a number of characters.To be honest the part where she finally breaks down and calls into the Dr. Laura show didn't leave much of a impact one me. Again, that's mostly through the need to read the book quickly. If you do decide to read this book, take it slowly.

[brainannex · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A graphic novel coming-of-age, coming-out story. The pacing is a little uneven but gets stronger as we approach the end with the "epilogue" being the strongest part of the whole piece. The parts where she is portrayed as a little girl were some of my favorites, drawn with a clear style, and the dogs were just as important as characters which lets them serve as a great complement to the main characters.

[lvstrongpuff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book touched my heart so much. Every time Nicole's mother asked her to name the stuffed animal after the guy that gave it to her it made me think of my mom while I was growing you. When she got a new man she would tell me brother, "You know (so and so) would really like it if you would call him dad." Both of our moms used us to trap a man (men). I really felt this story and I loved everything about it. It hurt to find out that she just missed the one person she didn't know she was looking for, but she did find something else. Great book.

[psalva-706031 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a vibrant memoir, full of wit, pathos, and beautiful art. The art style conveys the emotional content perfectly. To me, this was about healing from a turbulent childhood. Along the way, Nicole reflects on personal information and secrets, and this seemed to also be a reflection on the author/reader relationship. When it comes down to it, this was so full of heart and I loved it!

[sbloom42 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was disappointed by the lack of growth in this book, as experienced by either the author or her family. At the end, much is as it was in the beginning. The author has more knowledge about her history, but her family is still committed to covering up her past and she's still committed to accepting it. There's a distinct lack of direct confrontation here, and even when it does happen, the response is to ignore it, which immediately shuts it down. The epilogue of the book is the redeeming spot, the spot that made me slightly glad I stop reading earlier. The epilogue doesn't present growth, but it does reveal another layer of deception and stagnation in the author's family as the list of cover-ups grows longer and longer. The artwork added some depth as the drawings for the adult story are less defined than those of childhood, before the uncertainty of the author's family history arises.