Cruddy

Description

**Fiction, Graphic Novel:** A psycho-killer's daughter narrates her gory youth. Disguised as a boy she accompanies her father on his murderous jobs, during which she pretends to be a mute so as not to give away her voice. One of the more memorable tasks is disposing of dead mobsters in a slaughterhouse. On a September night in 1971, a few days after getting busted for dropping acid, a sixteen-year-old curls up in the corner of her ratty bedroom and begins to write. Now the truth can finally be revealed about the mysterious day long ago when the authorities found a child, calmly walking in the boiling desert, covered with blood. The girl is Roberta Rohbeson, and her rant against a world bounded by "the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud road" soon becomes a detailed account of another story, one that she has kept silent since she was eleven. Darkly funny and resonant with humanity, Cruddy, masterfully intertwines Roberta's stories -- part Easy Rider and part bipolar Wizard of Oz. These stories, the backbone of Roberta's short life, include a one-way trip across America fueled by revenge and greed and a vivid cast of characters, starring Roberta's dangerous father, the owners of the Knocking Hammer Bar-cum-slaughterhouse, and runaway adolescents. With a teenager's eye for freakish detail and a nervous ability to make the most horrible scenes seem hilarious, Cruddy is a stunning achievement.

Description

"Roberta Rohbeson, 1971. Her overblown, drug-induced teenage rant against a world bounded by "the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud road behind cruddy Black Cat Lumber" soon becomes a detailed account of another story. It is a story about which Roberta has kept silent for five years, until, under the influence of a pale hippie called the Turtle and a drug called Creeper, her tale giddily unspools..."--BOOK JACKET. "Roberta Rohbeson, 1967. The world of Roberta, age eleven, is terrifyingly unbounded, a one-way cross-country road trip fueled by revenge and by greed, a violent, hallucinatory, sometimes funny, more often horrific year of killings, betrayals, arson, and a sinister set of butcher knives, each with its own name."--BOOK JACKET. "Welcome to Cruddy, Lynda Barry's tale of the two intertwined narratives set five years - an eternity - apart, which form the backbone of Roberta's life. Cruddy is a wild ride indeed, a fairy tale - cum - low-budget horror movie populated by a cast of characters that will remain vivid in the reader's mind long after the final page."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Cruddy: an illustrated novelSimon & Schuster1999-01-01
• CruddyHardcoverSimon & Schuster1999-09-07