Puss Reboots: Blog: July 2024: Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair

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Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair by Lucy Knisley
The Yellow Bus by Loren Long

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Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair: 07/15/24

Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair by Lucy Knisley (2024) is a graphic novel memoir of life with an orange long haired cat named Linney. It focuses on Linney's final years of the cats life as Lucy and her husband are also parents to a toddler.

The book opens with an introduction to Linney, to cats in general, and to the difficulty in accurately portraying cats. The problem with drawing cats is they are unknowable and artists are too blinded by their love to draw them accurately.

As an artist who like Lucy struggled with pregnancy, had a cat, and had to find a balance with my art and family finally being a parent, I find Woe incredibly accurate and poignant. I knew where this book was going to end and got teary eyed thinking both about Linney and about Caligula (1995-2014).

Lucy's art has evolved since her earlier memoirs. The careful details are missing, replaced by a looseness in line and color. These are drawings done in snatches of time, efficiently rendered in between all of her other commitments. They are raw and wonderful.

Four stars