Come Home, Indio
A Memoir
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“a tour de force of comics” —Ed Park, The New York Times
One of the Top Ten Graphic Novels of 2020, as chosen by the American Library Association
One of the Best Books of 2020, as chosen by Publishers Weekly
“Fortunately for readers of this raw and intimate graphic memoir, Terry never fully lets go of his youthful vulnerability. . . . Reckoning with sobriety requires connection and humility, as Terry makes the case for with sincerity and beauty, as he ties his recovery to his spiritual homecoming.” —Starred Review, Publishers Weekly
A brutally honest but charming look at the pain of childhood and the alienation and anxiety of early adulthood.
In his memoir, we are invited to walk through the life of the author, Jim Terry, as he struggles to find security and comfort in an often hostile environment. Between the Ho-Chunk community of his Native American family in Wisconsin and his schoolmates in the Chicago suburbs, he tries in vain to fit in and eventually turns to alcohol to provide an escape from increasing loneliness and alienation. Terry also shares with the reader in exquisite detail the process by which he finds hope and gets sober, as well as the powerful experience of finding something to believe in and to belong to at the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance at Standing Rock.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Terry, as a child growing up between households and cultures his Irish American father's in the Chicago suburbs and his Native (Ho-Chunk) mother's in the Wisconsin Dells gets told off by his dad: "You're too sensitive, Indio." But fortunately for readers of this raw and intimate graphic memoir, Terry never fully lets go of his youthful vulnerability. Terry begins his chronicle of his lifelong search for belonging with stories of being raised by parents whose good intentions are undermined by alcoholism and anger, and continues through his euphoric discovery of drinking as a teen and subsequent grim, drawn-out battle with his own addiction, before ending with his activism and spiritual awakening on the campgrounds at the Dakota Access Pipeline. Terry notes his attachment to Will Eisner and friendship with artist James O'Barr (the Crow series); their influence is evident in his expressive line drawings and distinctive shading. While he poignantly recalls his teenage girlfriend, he deliberately silhouettes adult romantic relationships, including a broken marriage (seemingly both for the women's privacy and to represent how they were overshadowed by his love affair with alcohol). In a stylistic shift, the sections around his travels to the pipeline, in which he processes the inherited trauma of his Native ancestry, are elaborated in full pages of text with atmospheric landscape and portrait drawings. Reckoning with sobriety requires connection and humility, as Terry makes the case for with sincerity and beauty, as he ties his recovery to his spiritual homecoming.
