Ink Paper Words' Profile

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Pacific Northwest, United States
In elementary school, I desperately wanted my mother to order books for me from those flyers Scholastic hands out to kids. She refused, citing the "perfectly good library down the street." I exacted revenge by becoming a card-carrying ALA accredited reference librarian. Ha! Take that!

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

Note: this is my Goodreads review of Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot by quadriplegic Oregon cartoonist John Callahan (ISBN: 0679728244, ISBN13: 9780679728245).

I've been a fan of Callahan's cartoons for a long time and remember when he was being published in Willamette Week. This book is fascinating in its gritty realism and stark descriptions of daily life when you require help to do just about everything.

Less compelling, however, were Callahan's portrayals of the AA culture and his (justifiable) rants at the welfare system. I personally found the most touching moments in the book had to do with Callahan's search for his birth parents and coming to terms with the sense of abandonment he felt even as a small child.

Several very obvious usage errors detracted somewhat from the narrative (for example, "midrift" instead of "midriff," on one page referring to his brother as Skip and later on the same page as Kip. All in all, however, a thoughtful and eye-opening memoir.

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