'Stepping Stones' by Lucy Knisley

'Stepping Stones' is graphic novelist Lucy Knisley's first middle-grade fiction book.

Knisley is best-known for her adult memoirs ('Relish', 'Kid Gloves', 'Displacement' and more) but recently she has illustrated picture-books like 'You Are New' and 'Go To Sleep: (I Miss You)'

'Stepping Stones' is her first venture into middle-grade realms however, and even though it's biographical (emphasised by the author's note at the back) the protagonist here is called 'Jen' and names have been changed throughout.

'Stepping Stones' tells the story of Jen who has moved to the country with her Mum and her Mum's new boyfriend, Walter following her parent's divorce. Every weekend, Walt's kids - young girls Andy and Reese - come along to Peapod Farm and what begins as a tense relationship on multiple fronts eases into a sweet acceptance of changed circumstance and family-unit.

Knisley's MG offering is very much in the vein of Raina Telgemeier's books - which are also largely biographical recounting aspects of Raina's life growing up in San Francisco (books like 'Smile', 'Sisters', 'Guts' etc.). Raina is really the queen of this niche in tween graphic-novels for a largely female readership; in fact her most recent book 'Guts' with Scholastic got a 1-million copy print-run because her past successes proved she could reach that sales-figure (and did!). It makes sense that a publisher would tap Knisley to produce in this space too; given that she's had huge success in an adult-biographical graphic realm (her last book 'Kid Gloves' was nominated for a Harvey Award, in the Eisners) and in her adult books she's doing similar work to Raina; mining past traumas and complications in her life, to break open various spaces and conversations for her audience (Knisley has written about everything from; miscarriages, to birth complications, break-ups, loss of grandparents, bisexuality, etc.)

But there's something missing in translation as Knisley switches from an adult to middle-grade audience in 'Stepping Stones'. I think what I absolutely love in her adult works is the way she goes off on context-tangents (in 'Kid Gloves' she included pages explaining a history of misogynistic and racist medical practices that see black women dying from labor-complications due to a mismanaged and white patriarchal healthcare structure in America). In her adult works she also seamlessly flashes forward and backward to moments in her life as recounting them brings a fuller understanding of past incidences and future upheavals. That's all missing from 'Stepping Stones' ... we occasionally see Jen (who is also a budding comics artist) drawing out past memories of her parent's fraught marriage and breakdown, but they're stick-figures and light on introspection.

Maybe most frustrating is the character of Walter - her Mum's boyfriend - who really is a bully, and whose own children touch on past incidences between their father and mother, how his aggressive emotional behaviour likely led to divorce. Everything to do with Walt is really left open-ended and not confronted, and it robs the reader of a feeling of conclusion, in a way?

HOWEVER - I did wonder if 'Stepping Stones' was intended as the first in a series based at Peapod Farm, or following the post-divorce adventures of Jen and her family? There are little hints that maybe 'Stepping Stones' is setting up more exploration in this world, and it did strike me that this could be a similar series to Rita Williams-Garcia's 'Gaither Sisters' in switching locations each book, depending on which parent or family-member the girls are with (certainly I could see a Book #2 following Jen home to the city and staying with her Dad?)

As it is; something of 'Stepping Stones' feels a little ... flat? Too short, not quite rich enough with intertextual play like I've come to expect from Knisley and not enough depth to the situations and characters being set-up. I'll hold out hope it's simply a matter of more coming soon!

3/5

'Something New' and 'Kid Gloves' by Lucy Knisley

SOMETHING NEW blurb:

Lucy was another single girl in New York City, traversing the dating world and her own heartbreak, when her ex-boyrfriend John swings into town for a visit, with a special box hidden in his toiletry kit. This is a story about suddenly finding yourself completely ecstatic while also being completely at sea. Traversing the foreign world of wedding planning, Lucy and John will face family drama, gender stereotypes, and giant fluffy dresses on the way down the aisle. (First Second Books, 2016)

KID GLOVES blurb:

If you work hard enough, if you want it enough, if you’re smart and talented and “good enough,” you can do anything.

Except get pregnant.

Her whole life, Lucy Knisley wanted to be a mother. But when it was finally the perfect time, conceiving turned out to be harder than anything she’d ever attempted. Fertility problems were followed by miscarriages, and her eventual successful pregnancy plagued by health issues, up to a dramatic, near-death experience during labor and delivery.

This moving, hilarious, and surprisingly informative memoir not only follows Lucy’s personal transition into motherhood but also illustrates the history and science of reproductive health from all angles, including curious facts and inspiring (and notorious) figures in medicine and midwifery. Whether you’ve got kids, want them, or want nothing to do with them, there’s something in this graphic memoir to open your mind and heart.

‘Something New’ is the 2016 graphic novel memoir by Lucy Knisley, and ‘Kid Gloves’ is her 2019 one.

I’ve loved Lucy Knisley’s graphic-novels and social-media ever since she came out to Melbourne for our Writer’s Festival in 2013, and I purchased a copy of ‘Relish’. After that, I followed Lucy across all channels and heartily enjoyed the glimpses into her growing life that she afforded fans and followers.

‘Something New’ is the story of how Knisley and her husband John, got married – but like all of her autobiographical work, it delves deeper than just the surface-level recounting of events and milestones. Knisley really mines her emotional and personal journey, and in ‘Something New’ she starts like a new friend would, by filling readers in on all the background stuff they should know before launching into the through-line – like the fact that she and John were broken up kind of unofficially, when he proposed.

The graphic-novel maps her and John’s up and down relationship, and the point at which they decided to tie the knot. From there the focus is on how they went about managing their ‘wedding fever’ and planning what can be one of the biggest expenses in young people’s lives … but Knisley being an artist and a proudly bisexual woman, also delves into her discomfort with many of the heteronormative (or outright bonkers) traditions of wedding and marriage, the uncomfortable franchise of nuptials; so the book becomes a longer-view of how she and John go about building a future life together through the microcosm of this one event and how they make it more personal and significant *to them*.

‘Kid Gloves’ is the book I was really looking forward to, if only because in 2016 on her social-media channels (and since then) Knisley has spoken candidly of how close she came to dying while giving birth to her and John’s first child, Pal (not his real name, but a nickname for ‘Palindrome’ for his unique birth date). Knisley suffered preeclampsia and lost a lot of blood, they put her in an induced coma and while Pal was perfectly healthy, the birth left Knisley with a few ongoing health-problems. So I always knew ‘Kid Gloves’ would be a tough but vital read within the ‘series’ of Knisely’s memoir graphics. And it is, whoo boy.

I cried a lot reading ‘Kid Gloves’ – for both Knisley’s personal story, but also for how she links her journey of motherhood (through two miscarriages, depression, and then a near-death birthing experience) to wider societal and medical realities for women. She delves into the fact that women’s bodies and childbirth in particular were for so long misunderstood, shamed, and abused by the health profession, and largely because it was entirely made up of men and with religious bents. And it’s not much better in America now – without universal healthcare, and a system that largely undermines and lets black women die at a much higher rate and for entirely preventable reasons (as a snapshot; ‘The U.S. maternal mortality rate has more than doubled from 10.3 per 100,000 live births in 1991 to 23.8 in 2014.’ Compared to; ‘The maternal mortality rate in Australia in 2017 was 6 deaths per 100,000 women giving birth.’ That’s *insane* that that’s the American maternal mortality rate, and it’s climbing every year.)

Knisley manages to link a lot of past and current medical failures when it comes to women’s bodies, to a much deeper denial of women’s experiences and proper education of their bodies starting from a young age. It’s really profound, and very moving.

And then of course it was Knisley’s personal journey; her openness about her miscarriages and the depression they threw her into, the battle she was undergoing with her body – both in wanting to get pregnant, when she did finally and was violently ill, and then the ultimate betrayal of it nearly killing her (and within all that; the guilty, self-hate and trauma that’s increased by societal guilt and pressure … oh, the way she interweaves all of this is catharsis on so many levels.)

I am not married, nor do I have kids. I, in fact, have always known that I never want to be married and never want to have kids – Knisley acknowledges and cheers this choice amongst women too, there’s absolutely no shame. But I still loved and connected to these books, as I do all of Knisley’s stories. Yeah, it’s that I just like *her* and think she’s ace, but it’s more than that – she’s a gifted storyteller, somebody who can weave the personal amongst the political and societal and that’s very hard to do in such a warm and compelling way. But Lucy Knisley does it, every damn time.

5/5

'Relish: My Life in the Kitchen' by Lucy Knisley

 From the BLURB:

Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe—many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions.

A welcome read for anyone who ever felt more passion for a sandwich than is strictly speaking proper, Relish is a graphic novel for our time: it invites the reader to celebrate food as a connection to our bodies and a connection to the earth, rather than an enemy, a compulsion, or a consumer product.

“I was a child raised by foodies” – so begins Lucy Knisley’s ‘Relish, My Life in the Kitchen’, a collection of graphic food-themed short-stories in Knisley’s graphic novel memoir. 

I heard Lucy Knisley speak at Melbourne Writers Festival back in August, and quickly snatched up a copy of ‘Relish’ (which I also got Lucy to sign – and she drew a picture of my favourite food, Turkish delight, along with her signature). And I suppose it’s because I listened to Lucy’s fascinating lecture detailing the long road to graphic-novel publication that I decided to savour my reading of this book. 

I sat in the audience as Lucy showed us slides of the many reworked front covers she drew up – different colour and food combinations – and the painstakingly slow task of transcribing her own handwriting onto the storyboard panels. Yes, ‘Relish’ is a 173-page graphic novel that could very easily be read in one sitting. But it’s also an absolutely scrumptious and heartfelt food-memoir that deserves a slow read . . . so, I decided to relish this book, and I’m glad I did. 

Here are a collection of coming-of-age stories in the life of Lucy Knisley, triggered by the tantalizing aromas in her mother’s kitchen, or the slick, greasy taste of a smuggled McDonalds French-fry. Lucy’s life is so wrapped up in food – her mother was a caterer, her uncle owned a food shop, and she used to knock back vinegar shots with her father – that she finds many of the big moments in her life were orbited around food or dining occasions.

Like when she discovered the power of baking as ice-breaker to win friends in middle school. Or when she and her father went on a trip to Europe, following her parent’s divorce and her bratty behaviour coincided with her flagrantly eating McDonald’s junk food in front of her horrified foodie father. 

A trip to Mexico with her mother and her best friend involved eating fresh eggs over black beans, tortilla and salsa verde . . . but is also remembered for her friend Drew becoming obsessed with Mexican porn magazines, and Lucy getting her period for the first time – effectively marking the time when childhood was left behind. 

Peppered throughout the book are hand-drawn recipes – from mum’s pesto to sangria – the recipes actually look pretty easy . . .  although I say this as someone who still burns toast and considers opening  a cup of yoghurt to be ‘cooking’. 

‘Relish’ has been universally praised, and even made the Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of 2013 list. And it’s easy to see why. Lucy Knisley has created quite the concoction with this book – equal parts heartfelt memoir and laugh-out-loud confessional. She blends food and life in such a tantalizing way, it’s hard not to think of one’s own food-trigger memories in comparison to Lucy’s. This is easily a favourite book of 2013 for me.

5/5