My New York Diary [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Julie Doucet (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Doucet follows her popular underground comics series Dirty Plotte with an autobiographical graphic novel chronicling her six-month stint as a New Yorker. The book opens when Doucet is 17, just graduated from an all-girls' school in Canada. Before she leaves for New York, she loses her virginity, confronts the deadly monotony of art school and endures a suicide attempt by an odd and pathetic boyfriend. It's soon clear that Doucet learns things the hard way, but in New York City she finds another boyfriend and gives love a second shot. It isn't long, though, before she's in a downward spiral, suffering from both a mysterious bout of seizures and the new boyfriend--who, it turns out, is grimly possessive and a bit of a psycho to boot--so Doucet must plan an escape from him. Full of their author's most intimate and painful moments, Doucet's comics bring a depth of humanity and a deadpan humor to a succession of personal calamities. Doucet's unapologetic candor captures the harsh realities of her life and the pluck (and luck) that gets her out of one self-inflicted jam after another. Much like her life, her black-and-white drawings are complex, detailed and cluttered, and transform the hard knocks and bad decisions of a somewhat innocent underground cartoonist into wonderfully charming tales of urban survival. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
paper 1-896597-24-6 Among the younger generation of alternative comix artists, Doucet (best known for her comic book, Dirty Plotte) stands out for her engaging combination of a cartoonish style and frank realism; her postfeminist autobiographical tales are tough and self- effacing, bitchy and sweet, and all peopled with her rubbery characters with goofy oversized heads. This beautifully produced volume collects two short stories, both set in Doucets native Montreal, and the long title piece, a tale of misbegotten bohemianism in latter-day Manhattan. The First Time records Doucets unromantic deflowering, soon after graduating from convent school, by an aging hippie. The great backgrounds, full of visual jokes, also contribute to Julie in Junior College, a hapless tale of her subsequent days in art school. The bulk of this b&w collection is made up of Doucets episodic New York diary, a memoir of her year in the city that begins in romantic bliss, builds to a messy breakup, and ends with her escape to Seattle. Endpaper photographs prove Doucets claim that her Washington Heights neighborhood is exceedingly grimy, not just in her deliberately messy drawings. If anything, her rich comedic style softens the scuzzinessthe endless cockroaches and garbage-strewn sidewalks seem funny in her heavily littered frames. With her new beau, Julie guzzles beer by the case, begins to worry about work, and longs to move closer to the action on the Lower East Side. As her career takes off (theres a RAW party scene with a cameo by Art Spiegelman), her lovers career goes nowhere, and he grows increasingly angry and needy, a pattern that culminates in a particularly awful scene on the subway. All of Doucets panels charm with their clutter and with her self-portrait as a sartorially challenged, scraggly haired waif (literally wide-eyed) whos not as weak as she first seems. The hand-lettering, with some misspellings (French is the artists first language), adds to the overall effect: spunky and smart, Doucet is the true voice of grrrrl power. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1896597246
• ISBN-13: 978-1896597249
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,754,939 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars refreshing humor and truth, July 6, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews

Julie Doucet really has her pen on the pulse of experiences, particularly hers. This volume focuses on her adventures while living in the heart of New York City, and indeed makes for entertainment. The wonderful illustrations only compliment the story line, and makes the reader want to gobble up the book.

2 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Goddess artiste, September 29, 2003

By	Baltasar Gracian (Outside, Time) - See all my reviews

So you're a confused young man and trying to figure out exactly what women want. Well, Mme Doucet won't help you out there. But she will show you what women HATE in men with brutal honesty. And the guys are utter jerks and crybabies.

I probably was like one of the characters in this book and knew someone like Julie when I was younger. I seem to recall sort of being like her roommate, the one always dreading World War III. Why are us guys so obtuse? Probably for phallogocentric reasons. We get wrapped up in upright behavior and lose out on all the fun we could have by being bent. We're also selfish sometimes in the wrong way. (Women do like selfish men, just not stupidly selfish men.)

It would be nice if Julie could follow this one up with a story of a successful relationship with some guy. Because we care for her and want her to succeed.

2 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars shrill, faux-outraged blather:, August 28, 2006

By	asphlex "asphlex" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My New York Diary (Paperback)

This book (in fact, everything I have ever read by Doucet) is purely one note. A dire, angry attack on the stereotypes she has formed about men (not to mention those she applies to the cliches she claims to have been involved with), this particular story goes on to prove more of the opposite-sided although far-more-eloquent bigotry of Dave Sim in his anti-woman rants in Cerebus than anything the idea of misogyny could hope to presume. Julie Doucet proves herself to have a purely emotional agenda that lacks even the basic notion of rationality and proves just how stupid single-minded and self-righteous intellectuals are capable of being.

Good for the laughs at taking things the wrong way and other forms of profound misunderstanding of human motivations. Absolute trash on the gutter point spectrum of the industry.