My “To-Read” pile has been growing out of control lately, so over the last week or two I hunkered down and blew through three entries, which, sadly, just made it so that my pile actually fits in its designated cubby again.
Finishing the books didn’t take too much effort, as I found all three engrossing and enjoyable, but what surprised me was that all three challenged me as well, in ways both good and bad. They made me think about my life and childhood, the way I interpret stories, and the ways stories are told, and all of that seems more than worth unpacking with all of you, one book at a time.
THE COMPLETE EIGHTBALL: VOLUME 2 by DANIEL CLOWES
Okay, this one’s a comic — or, ahem, a graphic novel — but it’s dense enough that it took me longer to read than any of the actual novels that followed, so cut me a break. This particular tome collects issues 11-18 of Eightball, an “underground,” or “alternative,” comic written and illustrated by Daniel Clowes and distributed by Fantagraphics Books from 1989 through 1997. An anthology series, Eightball allowed Clowes to tell any story he wanted, and his twisted imagination certainly ran wild throughout its pages.
Eightball was a recommendation from friend of the newsletter Len, and thus I jumped in blind at his suggestion, knowing nothing about the series going into it, and very little about the alternative comics movement it was born from at all other than its reputation for often needless edginess. It’s a reputation Eightball, especially in its first volume, lives up (or down?) to, with levels of nudity and gross-out humor that often feel gratuitous1. What really stood out about it its first volume, though, was how difficult it was for me to pin down Clowes’ perspective within the stories.
These days I’ve grown used to stories with clear messages or morals; even if the characters are more ambiguous, its usually pretty easy to tell who the story sympathizes with or supports. Moreover, we live in an era where it’s nearly impossible to separate the art from the artist, with creators’ actions looming large over their stories2. Not with Eightball. The very first issue contains Clowes’ take on a Chick Tract that, rather than being a clear parody or satire, is essentially played straight; in the writer’s commentary Clowes says that he had recently run across one of the tracts and just wanted to try his hand at the style, but as my introduction to him as an artist, it left me quite confused as to where his values lay. Clowes clearly liked writing about assholes, with practically all of his “protagonists” being wildly misanthropic and often quite boorish, ignorant, and/or offensive. It’s often impossible to tell whether Clowes is speaking through these characters or lampooning/criticizing them at any given moment. I certainly have my own opinions about them all, which is likely the point (and what makes this art), but I’m definitely not used to stories being told in this fashion.
By the time Volume 2 rolled around, Clowes’ fierce cynicism was starting to diminish, replaced with a sense of nostalgia, a bittersweet melancholy. The stories were still just as opaque, but in a different way. Issue 14’s “The Golden Mommy” is inspired by a landmark from Clowes’ childhood, but the narrative itself is surreal and meaningless, running purely off a kind of dream logic where events blend one into the other in ways that totally ignore common sense and cause and effect. “Blue Italian Shit” pretends to be telling the story of how its protagonist lost his virginity, but then proceeds to meander throughout a series of vignettes about bizarre roommates and dates before dropping the answer in a single sentence in the final panel. “Like a Weed, Joe” is a coming of age story where the protagonist never really comes of age, with the ways the events of the story changed or effected him left mostly to the reader to decide. “Immortal, Invisible” is another tale where the protagonist never finds the answers he’s looking for. Even the serialized story that runs throughout these eight issues, “Ghost World,” plays out as a series of standalone anecdotes; the actual arc its characters are going through doesn’t become clear until the final two chapters. What these stories, and plenty of others throughout this volume, have in common is that they’re not really about their narrative, about their characters, about telling a complete story or charting someone’s personal growth; they’re about setting a mood, and they succeed at that fantastically.
I’ve always struggled with this kind of art. I’m someone who loves stories. I can deal with some ambiguity in my stories, sure, but I also like knowing the point of what I just read and what the creator had in mind. I suppose some of this can be chalked up to my own competitiveness and insecurity; I don’t want to interpret a story the “wrong” way. But it’s always meant that I’ve struggled with, let’s say, fine art or poetry, mediums that strongly rely on the consumer to determine their meaning, or which aren’t concerned about telling a story at all but instead simply about evoking a mood, about making the viewer feel a certain emotion. Reading Eightball, this finally clicked for me. I was, for the first time, able to let go of my concerns about “correct” interpretations and the meaning of the story and just lose myself in the emotional tapestry Clowes was trying to create. That’s pretty special, and I’ll always remember and appreciate it. Thank you, Eightball.
ACTION PARK by ANDY MULVIHILL and JAKE ROSSEN
Moving on to a bit of non-fiction, Action Park is the story of New Jersey’s most infamous amusement park. Also known as “Traction Park” or “Class Action Park,” Action Park was both loved and feared for its thrilling-but-risky rides, often designed and operated by amateurs; its ramshackle nature and insistence on putting the patrons in control of their own ride experiences (combined with beer on tap) lead to countless accidents and even a few deaths (If you want to know more about Action Park, this short documentary on it from DefunctLand is an excellent place to start).
This particular take on the park is told by Andy Mulvihill, whose father Glen founded and ran Action Park. Andy3 helped build the park and worked there from the age of 13 until he was well into his adulthood, and thus, has all the juicy insider information you’d expect from a book like this. What’s stuck with me from this book, though, isn’t the wild shenanigans, but the darker and more complex moments. Andy often at least attempted to be a counterbalance to his father’s Laissez-faire approach to safety. In charge of the waterpark’s lifeguards, he saved more lives in the wave pool in a single day, every single day, than most lifeguards do in their entire career. He witnessed several of the deaths and, in one case, was the one who discovered and retrieved the victim’s body. It clearly weighs heavily on him, and the deaths and failings are made far more personal and tragic via Andy’s perspective than they are in many of the other recollections of Action Park.
The most complex and thought-provoking figure in the story is Glen Mulvihill himself. It’s easy, and certainly justified, to cast him as the villain. His ruthlessly libertarian take on theme parks posits that they’re no different than the beach or other natural phenomenons, and that people should be able to take risks if they want to. That’s not awful in isolation, but it ignores the fact that Action Park wasn’t natural. There’s an expectation of safety within theme parks, and Action Park’s visitors couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that this particular park didn’t share that expectation with them. The park advertised heavily to the Spanish population but then had no way of communicating with them, meaning that a good chunk of their guests literally couldn’t understand or assess the risk of what they were about to do. Also, again, it sold cheap and plentiful beer to guests expected to show good judgement to protect themselves. It’s not a good look on Glen or the park. Even the early scenes before the Park’s opening, where Andy recounts his childhood, paints Glen as a villain…or, at least, that’s how I initially read it. The man’s own son describes him as someone who did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, not caring about the risks or rules, and always getting away with it because of money, connections, or quick thinking. Andy’s childhood sounds like my worst nightmare, a massive household of highly competitive siblings all put to extensive work in their father’s enterprises at young ages. I was practically having an anxiety attack imagining myself in his place.
I guess too many of my friends have daddy issues, cause I completely forgot how many boys idolize their father, Andy Mulvihill included; he and I were on very different pages. He doesn’t gloss over his father’s flaws in this book, but he also details the man’s good attributes and the way his example helped him as well. The six Mulvihill children all going on to incredibly successful careers no doubt has quite a bit to do with privilege, with the money they came from and their father’s connections, but it’s also clear that their father modeled perseverance and imagination in business, and he bred in them all an incredible work ethic that served them well (which, frustratingly, makes me wonder if the same upbringing that shaped me into such a sensitive and justice-oriented person also led to my aimlessness and lack of success, but I digress). Andy also reveals that Glen spent his entire life essentially handing out vast sums of money to families and business in need with no strings attached and with zero recognition; throughout his life he created an entire community of misfit, disaffected workers who found kinship and direction under his wing, and that’t not for nothing.
I certainly value safety and minimizing risk far more than Glen Mulvihill, but even I can see the value in some of the fights he picked and positions he supported. The first major blow to Action Park was Glen being hit with insurance fraud charges; he was legitimately guilty, but he committed fraud essentially by self-insuring the park, something that only placed his own assets at risk and which is apparently common practice and wholly legal nowadays. The government doesn’t exactly come across as great here either. Many of the unsafe conditions in the park were perfectly legal thanks to lax laws in New Jersey and/or inspectors who didn’t have the gumption or the training to really understand what Action Park even was, much less regulate it. At one point, after losing a case to Glen, the entire government of New Jersey decided to relocate radioactive waste to the town surrounding Action Park, reportedly, solely out of spite (Glen teamed up with the town and helped make sure it didn’t happen). They aren’t exactly making a strong case for respecting them.
The most endearing — but also mildly disturbing — fact Action Park reveals about Glen Mulvihill is that he didn’t need the Park to support himself; it was a passion project that often wasn’t profitable, and which was kept afloat with cash from his other business ventures. It’s disturbing in the sense that someone having that much money at all always makes me uncomfortable, but it’s endearing because, for all his costly mistakes and errors, there was no malice behind Action Park. Mulvihill created it because he enjoyed having fun and he enjoyed creating a place where other people could have fun too. It made me think about all the things I love; not just theme parks, but comic books, blockbuster movies, most television, almost everything I love is only possible because somebody with deep pockets, somebody who would probably drive me insane in person and whose ethics would make me feel woozy, bankrolled it. In that respect, it feels important to me to acknowledge my own hypocrisy and complicity.
I don’t think Action Park has changed any of my ethical or political stances, but given my penchant for black-and-white thinking (which I talked about a bit in my piece on Daria a few weeks ago), I think the work this book did in making me interrogate my own politics and the way I approach opinions and lifestyles that differ from my own is important and worthwhile. That’s certainly not what I was expecting out of a tell-all about a theme park in New Jersey, I can tell you that.
DETRANSITION, BABY by TORREY PETERS
Finally we have Detransition, Baby, the debut novel of Torrey Peters and the only one of these three to have any sort of mainstream recognition or momentum. The story: Ames was assigned male at birth, eventually came out as a trans woman and medically transitioned, but later detransitioned and began living as a man again. Reese is Ames’ ex, a trans woman who desperately wants to be a mother. Katrina is Ames’ boss and (cis) girlfriend, who has just become unexpectedly pregnant with his child (despite years of estrogen shots supposedly leaving him sterile). None of these three know what they’re doing, but together they might — might — be able to create some sort of family, if they can just get out of their own way.
It’s a compelling plot, but also one that largely takes a back seat. This novel is less about story and more about dissecting these three characters until their every thought and flaw lies bare for all to see. Each character is unique, complex, and well fleshed out; they’re also incredibly frustrating, and almost every single decision they make makes me want to shake them and ask them what’s wrong with them, but it’s to Peters’ credit that these frustrating decisions all feel rooted in character, totally understandable, and incredibly sympathetic. I may shake my head at their choices, but they ring true nonetheless. I’m legitimately impressed by the deft touch Peters brings to Reese, Ames, and Katrina; even Ames’ detransition is presented in a sympathetic manner. It’s an incredibly touchy subject, with the relatively few detransition cases often used as ammunition against trans people by both those who detransition and political pundits; Ames’ case, though, isn’t based in politics, but in trauma and his own complex and broken relationship with his own masculinity. Peters doesn’t paint Ames’ detransition as a healthy choice, but she nonetheless makes readers empathize with him and understand exactly why he made the decision.
I found Detransition, Baby to be gripping and compelling, and intellectually challenging in similar ways to the preceding books I discussed, but unfortunately, the greatest challenge it presented me ended up being its lackluster ending.
Obviously, I’m about to SPOIL the end of this book, so if you want to avoid that, turn back now!
Detransition, Baby doesn’t really reach a conclusion or even end as much as it just kinda stops, practically in mid-thought. After spending the final third act of the book on the precipice of actually making their plan work, things go catastrophically wrong, and Reese, Ames, and Katrina are left still wanting to raise this baby together but also seeing pretty much no possible way to actually make it happen. Ames posits that it’s so hard because they’re trying to do something entirely new, to which all three glumly agree, and then things just…end.
Now, I said earlier in this piece that I can deal with ambiguous endings, and I stand by that. I also said that this book is less about the plot and more about the characters, and I also stand by that. Still, this ending is such a letdown. Peters seems to be using it to make a grand statement about womanhood and trans womanhood and queerness, but what’s so great about Detransition, Baby is that its characters are never used as metaphors, never used to represent women or trans people as a whole. They’re far too specific and idiosyncratic for that. Sure, they can be used to make a statement, but in this specific story that’s not enough to craft a compelling conclusion; Peters has such a handle on these characters that whatever solution she would have come up for them would be far more surprising, yet also far more sensible, than anything the reader could come up with on their own, and I feel cheated out of that solution. Peters is a good enough writer that I don’t really believe this is the case, and this is no doubt uncharitable of me, but this ending makes me feel like Peters wrote herself into a corner and couldn’t figure out how to resolve things, and that’s an awfully sour note to end such an otherwise excellent story on.
And I seriously mean that. I loved reading this book, and even with the bummer ending I still like it enough to recommend it. I just wish that a false note of an ending wasn’t my freshest memory of it, the first thing I’ll think of every time I think of this story. That’s not what it deserved. It’s a challenge I wish I didn’t have to face.
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!
Logo by Lewis Franco, with respects to Saves the Day.
I’ve said this before, but I worry that I come across as a prude in these newsletters sometimes. I think nudity and gross-out humor have their place in art, though the latter will never be my cup of tea. But I also think devices like nudity, profanity, and gore are mistaken by insecure writers as a stand-in for “maturity” when, used to excess, they instead just come across as juvenile. I don’t know if Eightball ever reaches that level, but it’s certainly self-indulgent sometimes.
I’m not criticizing this. It’s sad that art can’t really just be appreciated on its own merit, but given the horrendous injustices so many creators and celebrities have gotten away with, it’s also an entirely, 100% necessary reckoning for all of us.
I try to refer to authors and/or artists by their last names as a sign of respect, but given that Andy and his father share the same last name and I’ll be speaking about both extensively, I’m just going to refer to them by their first names, which is largely the route the book itself takes as well.