The Secret to Superhuman Strength

The Best Graphic Book of 2021by Publishers Weekly | A New York Times Best Graphic Novel of 2021 | A New York Times Notable Book | An Autostraddle Best Queer Book of the Year | ABoston Globe Best Book of the Year | A St. Louis Post Dispatch Best Book of the Year |NPR, 12 Books NPR Staffers Loved | Shelf Awareness Best Books of 2021From the author ofFun Home, aprofoundlyaffectinggraphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair withexercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our timesComics and culturalsuperstarAlison Bechdel delivers a deeplylayered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes throughan ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Easternphilosophersand literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the authors own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others. A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times.