Bury Me Already (It's Nice Down Here)
Comics on Pregnancy and Parenthood
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Raw, honest, and hilarious, Bury Me Already (It's Nice Down Here) chronicles the joy and horror of becoming a mother during challenging times.
In this follow-up to the acclaimed memoir Impossible People—a book about getting sober and becoming a professional artist in New York City—cartoonist Julia Wertz returns home to Northern California where she reunites with her family and rekindles a relationship with an ex-boyfriend. After a surprise pregnancy and a marriage proposal, Julia settles (somewhat reluctantly) into a quiet life in a small town. But as 2020 approaches, her world, and the world at large, takes a sharp turn toward unexpected chaos. Through comic vignettes, essays, and diary doodles, Julia recounts the events of her pregnancy and its attendant body horror, a miscarriage, family trauma, marriage, a life-altering accident, and the joy and surprises of parenthood as it all unfolds against the backdrop of local wildfires and a global pandemic. The result of this unconventional collection is a heart-wrenching and hilarious story of adversity, resilience, and, ultimately, love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New Yorker cartoonist Wertz follows Impossible People with another fearless, funny, and foulmouthed graphic memoir. Having relocated from New York City to Northern California, Wertz gets serious with on-and-off boyfriend Oliver and settles into her version of a mature life: "somewhere to eat, somewhere to read, and somewhere to poop." But when an unexpected pregnancy ends in miscarriage, she realizes she wants a baby, even if it means putting her life as a freewheeling, urban-spelunking artist on hold. Wertz ends up giving birth during Covid lockdowns, and her son, Felix, is monitored for a potential heart problem while the family copes with the California wildfires. Julia finds support in her eccentric family (her filter-less mother's advice is "both timeless and reliant on whatever media just consumed"), but one of her brothers endures a mental health crisis just as Julia is busiest with her infant. Wertz draws simple characters against lovingly detailed backgrounds, lavishing attention on vintage storefronts and the intermingling in her home of scavenged curios with baby toys. There's a welcoming messiness to it all that feels apropos to the circumstances—some gag-strip-style anecdotes sport a sketchier stick-figure style, other moments are told as illustrated text, and a few real photos of her kid are movingly peppered in. "Go away," she tells her son, "so I can finish making this comic about how much I love you." An artist as smart and snarky as Wertz is incapable of crafting a conventional parenthood story, yet she brings real heart to her irreverent humor. This glows.
