The Greatest of Marlys

Rating:
Summary: Barry is Brilliant
Review: There are few writers that can so capture the heartbreak, humor and pain of childhood. Barry has an uncanny ability to unfold the terrors and pleasures of a young life in a way that in not obvious or overstated. The novel SARAH by JT LeRoy is a new book I found that was similarly breathtakingly scary and funny. LeRoy, like Barry captures the heart of all whose teen years were spent in a search for self and validation.

Rating:
Summary: This book is one of The Great Right Ons of me
Review: This book includes strips from some of Lynda's other books that are out of print, like The Fun House and It's So Magic. Missing these is a crime to your book collection so thank god for the awesomly titled The! Greatest! of! Marlys! Lynda Barry's work perfectly hits on the altered mental state of childhood and adolescence in certain kinds of misfit, but creative and eternally hopeful people. If you know this kind of person this book will speak to you by name. Lynda Barry's dead-on honesty and great sense of absurdity are perfectly nailed with details like the language and thought processes of kids writing essays or creating makeshift newspapers or weird games to try to make the mundane world around them live up to their great hopes and imaginations. Including her essays, books, and other comics, she is one of my very favorite writers of all time.

Rating:
Summary: another Marlys speaks
Review: Who but Lynda Barry would choose the name Marlys as a cartoon character? I know a few other people named Marlys but none younger than me (45). I grew up in the era that these comics are living in so can relate to the very funny situations. I laugh out loud when I read these, my kids don't get the jokes. Anyone named Marlys should have this book. It will be an heirloom!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: Wow! Number one!! This book captures the feeling of childhood in an amazingly touching fashion.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: Wow! Number one!! This book captures the feeling of childhood in an amazingly touching fashion.