In his keenly observed graphic memoir celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery. Opening at the culmination of a disastrous trip to Puerto Rico, the first page of Impossible People finds Julia standing stupefied in the middle of the jungle beside a rental Jeep she's just crashed. From this moment, the story flashes back to the beginning of her five-year journey towards sobriety that includes group therapy sessions, relapses, an ill-fated relationship, terrible dates, and an unceremonious eviction from her New York City apartment.
Far from the typical addiction narrative that follows an upward trajectory from rock bottom to rehab to recovery,
Impossible Peopleportrays the lesser told but more common story: That the road to recover is not always linear. With unflinching honesty, Wertz details the arduous, frustrating, and hilarious story of trying and failing and trying again.
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Library JournalBest Books of the YearJulia Wertzis a professional cartoonist, amateur historian, and part-time urban explorer. Her books include
The Fart Party, Museum of Mistakes, Drinking at the Movies, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, and
Tenements, Towers, & Trash: An Unconventional, Illustrated History of New York City. She does monthly comics and doodles for
the New Yorker and
the New York Times. After leaving New York City, she settled down in Northern California with Oliver (yes,
that Oliver) and their son, Felix.
"With her trademark dark humor laced with earnel³î