Customer Reviews

Our Cancer Year

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A fine work of autobiography. Understand, however, that Harvey is critical of everything, himself included, and his unflinching eye depicts his personal agony alongside the state-of-the-world at the time. As in many of his extended works, Harvey uses his story to get up on a soap-box, but if you think of his comics as an extension of his life, you might be begining to appreciate what he really is. Harvey IS his stories.

I was struck by the relationship between Harvey and his wife Joyce: if there is a better depiction of the difficulty in love in the midst of illness, I don't know it. Their relationship is loving and it touched me deeply.

It's very important to emphasize here that Frank Stack's artwork is not "sloppy" or "crude" in any sense. He and Bill Griffith probably have the strongest straight-art chops of anybody doing comics now. But Stack isn't just technically accomplished. Once you learn to follow his deceptively simple lines, he's profoundly expressive in his impressionist manner. Especially dealing with the tough stuff in this story, he finds the exact unsentimental tone. If he was a more prolific storyteller (or had just a bit more vivid sense of humor) his work would be mentioned right with Griffith, Crumb, Sheldon, Williams, Woodring -- the likes of those. Barbner and Pekar's single finest stroke may have been choose Stack to do the art for "Our Cancer Year."

I found this book interesting since I'm a fan of Pekar's American Splendor series and his appearances on David Letterman's shows (apparently at an end, unfortunately for Pekar, even more unfortunately for Letterman). This book's an in depth look at Pekar's struggle with lymphoma. Given the subject matter, it's probably no surprise that this isn't as amusing as the American Splendor anthologies. But for fans, or for people struggling with illness, it's probably a worthwhile read.

The first time I read this, it was because I wanted to read more about Harvey and his bout with cancer. I found it to be a very moving story that was -- as I would expect -- very honest and open on many of the details from that time. Even then, I was moved by how the chemotherapy nearly wiped him out, and how his own natural depression was exacerbated by the illness.

The second time I read this, it was because someone I know has cancer. Seeing her go through this, even at a distance, makes this even more poignant. Parts of this, to be honest, were hard to read. It's a very strong, unflinching book and I'm not sure it's for everyone (especially if you're about to start chemo). But, that being said, it is definitely worth reading.

A few quick comments:

1) The artist is, indeed, quite skilled (I've been a fan of his work for years), but he chose to do a very rough rendition here. This may not appeal to everyone.
2) I don't think you need to have any prior knowledge of Harvey Pekar or Joyce Brabner (although watching the movie, American Splendor, certainly would help).
3) In spite of the many good things I have to say about this book, I feel I must comment on its sloppy production values. Throughout the book, the text is marred by countless paste-up lines. Thin shadows visible near the places where they pasted the text onto the art board. Please, don't respond and say this is some sort of artistic decision. I was a professional typesetter for many years, and I can tell that this is just pure sloppy work. There are also places where the lettering style changes in the middle of a sentence and, obviously, this is where an editor spliced in a small correction. All in all, I found this sloppy workmanship to be a distraction (and, to be honest, I mostly blame the guy who shot the plates because it was his job to take clean pictures; but barring that, it falls on the editor because he should have done a better job proofing this book).
4) I've read Joyce's comics before, so her politics were not a surprise to me. But some people might be put off by here extreme left wing views, and her political activism occupies about 25% of the book. It is relevant because it covers what she was doing and who their house guests are, but nevertheless, it might be a distraction for some people.

Nevertheless, this is a good book, and I might even hazard to say that, in the genre of cancer literature, it's an important book. It's not for everyone, but I definitely recommend it to someone who wants to take a close, prolonged, no sugar-coating look at what it's like to survive cancer, and to survive the treatment for cancer.

I've always admired Joyce Brabner (I've even, truth to tell, had a bit of a crush on her). I like her writing talent, her passion for justice, her activism, her wit, her nonconformity, her looks, her scrapiness, and her determination to protect and nurture her obsessive-compulsive genius of a husband Harvey Pekar. And I love this memoir of the year in which things fell apart on several different fronts, and how Joyce picked them up. Our Cancer Year was co-written by Harvey and Joyce, but let's face it: the protagonist in the story is--and ought to be--Joyce.

Our Cancer Year has three plots going on in it. Joyce struggles to write a book about young kids around the world who work for peace; Joyce and Harvey decide to leave their rented apartment and buy a house; and Harvey is diagnosed and treated for lymphoma. In three intersecting circles, then, we see things fall apart: the trauma for the kids and Joyce's tireless (and occasionally despairing) efforts to befriend and nurture them; the hassles and unexpected emergencies that come with buying and fixing up a house; and the disruption of the quotidian when serious illness comes. The ordinary--which is, after all, Pekar's chosen metier--becomes confused, conflicted, messed up. Things fall apart.

It's Joyce's job to try to put them back together--or at least to be strong enough to help the kids and Harvey get through the storm until calmer weather returns. Her struggle to hold the center is the real story here, and it's a gripping and poignant one that actually caused tears to come to my eyes at one point (when Dana, one of the peace kids, leaves a phone message that an exhausted Joyce is too tired to pick up). Harvey's suffering, the numbness of Uri and the anger of Zamir, the insensitivity of Dr. Cantor, the sheer weariness, fear, and occasional rage of Joyce: these add to the creative tension of the story in ways that, at the end of the memoir, leave the reader emotionally exhausted but grateful for having been allowed to share this year with Joyce and Harvey.

A quick word about the artist, Frank Stack. Of all the illustrators with whom Pekar and Joyce collaborate, I have to say that I like his work least. But he was exactly the right artist for Our Cancer Year. The fluid, impressionistic style that Stack brings to the story chillingly conveys the theme of things falling apart, nothing standing still, the familiar contours going wavy. Such impressionism utterly fails to capture Pekar's obsessive-compulsive need for control, predictability, and definition, and that's why I generally don't like Stack's illustrations of Pekar's stories. But Our Cancer Year is, in part, a chronicle of the breakdown of predictability and definition. So Stack was an inspired choice.

If you like Pekar or you have seen a cancer fight play out, you will totally get this. And if you want to know what a cancer fight is like, with everything exposed, this is the book to get.

Since one reviewer mentioned R.Crumb, I will point out that Pekar said that Crumb was very impressed with what the artist of this book had done and Crumb said he couldn't have done better. The artist has done incredible work in transmitting the story.

This book is as real as it gets. Get it!

What? I can't believe no one has reviewed this book. It's great; read it. Here they are in all their splendour. Things I really like about this book: willingness to expose yourself (so American!), willingness to be drawn normal (not glamourized), Joyce's kid-thing trying to make the world a better place, Harvey's recognition he's an oddball (staying in that job, that apartment, this comic-book autobiography). They are basically just out there living life large - not being mainstreamed. We're all odd and weird in some way(s) and these guys don't hide it.

Cancer's pretty scary and these guys do a good job using it as a springboard for a more intense life.

If you can't love Harvey Pekar, you can't love anyone. He is a lovely man, with as many neuroses as the rest of us, who listens and watches and reports on the people and world around him. Although this is about a bout with cancer, and how a man and his wife and friends make it through, it's not depressing. You do feel as though you are with them -the graphic novel format makes this story easy to take in and digest. I might not have read it in a regular format, and it's something I'd be sorry to have missed.

I found the Pekar books to be like peanuts - I kept wanting more and more and hate to finish one - unless I have another ready to read. Harvey's 'comics" are the first graphic novels I've spent time reading, and I am hooked. The drawings add immeasurably to the story - a format I would like to see developed further in the future.

I got this book under the mistaken impression that it was written solely by Harvey. In fact, it was co-written with his wife Joyce. I'd estimate that a good 75% of it was written by Joyce. This would be no problem if she shared Harvey's brilliance and humor, but she doesn't. She's self-absorbed and self-righteous, and she spends a great deal of her time trying to convince us of what a good, wise person she is. For example, even as Harvey is close to death, Joyce is weeping crocodile tears for some young people she barely knows in Israel who might be in danger (but aren't). In other words, she's exactly the kind of pompous phony a healthy Harvey would deflate. The art stinks, too.

BUT, at least we have 25% or so of Harvey's writing, and the story itself isn't bad. A no-holds-barred look at a cancer patient going through chemo and radiation.

Harvey Pekar is probably most well known for his work on American Splendor, a movie of which was made starring Paul Giamatti. But this tender story, which tells the painful and touching tale of his discovery that he has lymphoma and must begin chemotherapy. The news comes as Pekar and his wife, Brabner, are preparing to buy a house. As always with Pekar's work, Our Cancer Year is most remarkable for its utter normalcy. Pekar is an everyman through and through. As such, when he battles his disease, he does it in a comically human way. The title of this work is apt, too, because Pekar and his wife experience everything together in this fight against cancer. Pekar's strengths as a storyteller shine in this volume as his cancer battle is contrasted with the first Gulf War, going on at the same time. War too is an all-too-human affliction, but Pekar is able to find the glorious in even the most mundane traits of mankind. That's always been his gift, and it's on full display here.

-- John Hogan