Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir

Illustrated all in black and white, graphic artist Amy Kurzweil recreates the story of three Jewish women and the culture that molded them. There is the immigrant grandmother who survived the Holocaust, a successful academic mother, and a confused and immature granddaughter who attempts to seam the family connections. With her sharply penciled drawings on crowded pages, the hectic lives of the three are boisterously sketched. Within, the humor of the narrative, the horror of the European genocide, and the survival strategies of the refugees is poignantly described. The awkward, shy Stanford graduate ignores the advice coming from her psychologist mother and cringes at the embarrassing antics of the strong-minded grandmother. Despite all the seemingly humiliating interactions, an underlying sense of belonging and love knit the relationships. The Jewish sense of family and the essential traditions of its followers is exquisitely captured in the figures and situations explosively depicted in this graphic novel. Sweetness is meshed with the cruder realities of life as the histories of the three women are portrayed. The content and style seems similar to the themes published by Roz Chast in her graphic story of her parents.