Flying Couch begins with a sketchbook atop a book unfolding to become a house, from which flutters a note: "Amy--Here are Bubbe's Stories...." This affecting debut graphic memoir from Amy Kurzweil centers on her search for identity as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. Her grandmother's (Bubbe's) story and the influence of her psychotherapist mother loom large as she grows up and moves away to go to college. "The women in my family have certain stories to tell," she says. Amy clutches a pillow on her sofa, glancing apprehensively at a ghosted image of her Bubbe, fallen and injured as she tries to outrun the Nazis. "Why does it feel like I'm not the protagonist of my own life?" It's an arresting, ironic moment in a memoir filled with heartache and humor, and Bubbe herself gets most of the laughs.
While the subject recalls Art Spiegelman, Kurzweil's tone and loose composition--her line drawings create organic page divisions in lieu of rigid paneling--is more Will Eisner. The sly details, though, are her own. Kurzweil is as candid as she is focused: this is the story of a search for meaning across three generations of women. Amy's father (noted author and scientist Ray Kurzweil) is nowhere to be seen, and she promises that his side of the family will be the subject of her next book.
Flying Couch is worthwhile reading for any sensitive person struggling to find their place in a world--or a family--that often overshadows them. --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller