The Squirrel Mother by Megan Kelso
Published by Fantagraphics, 2006
Kelso is only just now recieving wider distribution after publishing some of these short stories in various magazines over the last few years. Unlike many of her contemporary female authors who grapple with more explicit feminist topics, Kelso carries a lighter touch. Squirrel is a poignant, playful collection, one of the better works of the last few years to carry those adjectives. Unlike Craig Thompson and Adrien Tomine, who use similar emotions to tell far more direct stories, Kelso embraces playfulness itself, telling stories about young girls yearning for the outdoors and mothers that are both exacting and beautiful. The aimless tale of an odd aunt's minor breakdown matched with a teenager's stolen cigarette is one of the stand-outs of this collection, but all the pages are so full of obvious concern that it's hard not to enjoy all of them. Although the book takes a surprising turn into US Historical Essay in the last section, those final pages of the Founding Fathers are part of this collection because they are a part of Kelso's own obsessions, and it isn't until she appears in them that this becomes apparent. After hinting and foreshadowing her own personality throughout the early pieces, the real Kelso appears as History-Dork to narrate her own fantasies of make out sessions between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Whether this will be Kelso's breakout book or not is rapidly becoming moot: probably not, but i'm not altogether sure we are ready to share her yet.
-Tucker Stone, 2006
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