Those echoes get a lot louder when Lou says, “I spent my early twenties working so hard and so fast… and I never once asked myself how I was doing it all. There’s a story about how Lou built a whole car when she was 15, but she’s not excited to tell it. They tell each other meaningful stories about their childhoods, and Bea reveals why she’s on the road. Pursued by some creepy dudes with glowing eyes, they find a mysterious cat and try to return her to her home. Lou, a gifted mechanic, learns to let go a little. The story brings together two women: the teenaged Beatrice (who goes by Bea) and the 27-year-old Lou, as the latter lets the former hitch a lift through an imaginary west Texas. There’s plenty of shimmery weirdness, mind you. It’s not as abstruse as On a Sunbeam, not as simple as Spinning. Are You Listening? is a good midpoint between Walden’s previous two books. Her work doesn’t look like Farel Dalrymple’s if you were to compare their drawings side by side, but they have a similar focus on liminality that makes me feel itchy (not a criticism of their work so much as a criticism of my own deep-rooted desire for clarity). It was undeniably interesting, but the outlines weren’t clear. The book was too big, too soft around the edges. In On a Sunbeam, that elliptical tendency was frustrating. ![]() There was a bit of that in Spinning, probably because of the topic, but mostly she prefers to suggest rather than to taxonomize. ![]() Walden doesn’t seem to like to approach things squarely. ![]() to draw) and her prodigy-type status in the comics world (she was asked to do her first book at the age of 17), and there are parts of Are You Listening? that address those feelings, just not head on. I’m sure she’s tired of hearing about her work ethic ( although she does wake up at 4 a.m. Two years ago, she put out Spinning, an autobiographical story about her competitive figure-skating years and her process of coming out. Given that On a Sunbeam came out early last October, it is sort of ridiculous that Are You Listening? followed less than a year later, especially given that it is in color. At the same time, Walden’s pace and productivity continue to astonish. Listening genuinely isn’t as long or as complex as On a Sunbeam, which was nearly 540 pages of multiple timelines and a host of characters in an outer-space setting. That’s a joke and a true statement at the same time. Tillie Walden’s new book, Are You Listening?, is relatively unambitious compared to her previous one, given that it’s just a smidge over 300 pages.
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