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A review by mschlat
All the Answers by Michael Kupperman
4.0
Why I picked this up: I had previously read much of Kupperman's silly comics (and loved [b:Snake and Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret|166430|Snake and Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret|Michael Kupperman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348761116l/166430._SX50_.jpg|160714]) and was interested in his turn to nonfiction.
What I thought: Kupperman is telling the tale of his father, Joel Kupperman, and his time as a Quiz Kid (on radio, TV, and the movies) in the 1940's. Or, at least, he's trying to tell the story. His father, for most of his life, never referred to his experiences and actively avoided any attempts to relive them. That compartmentalization and hiddenness bled over into Joel's life so much that Michael often sees his father as an unknowable and uncompassionate figure. And at the time of the graphic novel's writing, Joel is entering dementia. So the thrust of the exploration is not just to tell a good story (and it is a good detailed story) but to determine whether Michael can ever understand his father.
Kupperman's style has always been starkly black and white with a strong emphasis on photorealism. (Think of portraits bleached out to show only the important lines.) That approach works well here, especially with the vast amount of historical images Kupperman displays (e.g., the Quiz Kids doing USO tours, the Quiz Kids meeting celebrities, etc...). And the starkness also plays up the straightforward honesty Michael shows in discussing his father. There is little sugar coating and an increasing sense of Joel's trauma, of the deepening levels of pain and self-abnegation he went through to please his mother, to be a star, to show WWII audiences a cute Jewish kid.
It's a quick read, but an absorbing story, and I cherished how Kupperman probed the need for the undisclosed details of your family history (and whether or not that probing was necessary).
What I thought: Kupperman is telling the tale of his father, Joel Kupperman, and his time as a Quiz Kid (on radio, TV, and the movies) in the 1940's. Or, at least, he's trying to tell the story. His father, for most of his life, never referred to his experiences and actively avoided any attempts to relive them. That compartmentalization and hiddenness bled over into Joel's life so much that Michael often sees his father as an unknowable and uncompassionate figure. And at the time of the graphic novel's writing, Joel is entering dementia. So the thrust of the exploration is not just to tell a good story (and it is a good detailed story) but to determine whether Michael can ever understand his father.
Kupperman's style has always been starkly black and white with a strong emphasis on photorealism. (Think of portraits bleached out to show only the important lines.) That approach works well here, especially with the vast amount of historical images Kupperman displays (e.g., the Quiz Kids doing USO tours, the Quiz Kids meeting celebrities, etc...). And the starkness also plays up the straightforward honesty Michael shows in discussing his father. There is little sugar coating and an increasing sense of Joel's trauma, of the deepening levels of pain and self-abnegation he went through to please his mother, to be a star, to show WWII audiences a cute Jewish kid.
It's a quick read, but an absorbing story, and I cherished how Kupperman probed the need for the undisclosed details of your family history (and whether or not that probing was necessary).