Relive the horror of junior high
Authors contribute their own takes on the agony that is middle school to Stuck in the Middle
By Adam Schragin
Published: July 6th, 2007 | 11:19pm
While most of us will never forget what daily life was like in middle school, it' just as unlikely that we remember it the way it really was. That's because as we'e matured, our focus has broadened so much that it' often hard to recall what it was like to build your life around a clothing brand, or a hairstyle, or a rapidly shifting coterie of equally confused adolescents - not to mention how the only real experience most of us had with the outside world was when our mom dropped us off there ("And I'll see you back here NO LATER than 9:30".
Looking back with love, and more than a little horror, editor/graphic novelist Ariel Schrag and her peers have taken their adolescent years to task, dismantling it to discover that sometimes their sensitivity to the outside world was massively overblown, and at other times narcissistically absent. Welcome to middle school.
While the themes of Stuck in the Middle
bounce from story to story -- trying to fit in, dealing with siblings and parents, and coming of age in general -- each author's focus is unique. Some of the most successful pieces are both respectful and irreverent in regard to those early years. "The Disco Prairie Rebellion of '81" by Ariel Bordeaux is an amusing glimpse into a Massachusetts childhood back when constricting Jordache jeans and floofy hairstyles were to die for. While recounting the hilarity of really wanting, but not being able to afford, ugly pairs of designer jeans, the story also gives those early developmental crises the respect they deserve - not so much impugning the past as winking at it. Other stories dwell on the melancholy; Eric Enright's "Anxiety" views a troubled sixth grade year through the prism of therapy and unsettling peer associations, and Joe Matt's piece plays up his childhood self-centeredness to a cathartic climax.
bounce from story to story -- trying to fit in, dealing with siblings and parents, and coming of age in general -- each author's focus is unique. Some of the most successful pieces are both respectful and irreverent in regard to those early years. "The Disco Prairie Rebellion of '81" by Ariel Bordeaux is an amusing glimpse into a Massachusetts childhood back when constricting Jordache jeans and floofy hairstyles were to die for. While recounting the hilarity of really wanting, but not being able to afford, ugly pairs of designer jeans, the story also gives those early developmental crises the respect they deserve - not so much impugning the past as winking at it. Other stories dwell on the melancholy; Eric Enright's "Anxiety" views a troubled sixth grade year through the prism of therapy and unsettling peer associations, and Joe Matt's piece plays up his childhood self-centeredness to a cathartic climax. Occasionally the stories in this collection begin to blur, and it's difficult to recall which story of abandonment via folded note or concourse shit-talking goes with which characters. Jace Smith and Nick Eliopulos' stories come off as unfocused and a little amateurish, and Daniel Clowes' contribution is another letdown entirely. For those unfamiliar with Clowes' work, "Like a Weed, Joe" resonates with a longing and sense of isolation that the best of his work transmits, but anyone with more than a passing interest in the highly respected author of Ghost World
and David Boring
has inevitably read this selection before, either in the pages of Eightball
or in where it was already anthologized in Caricature
five years ago. It's too bad that a newer representation of his past experiences couldn't be recounted here.
and David Boring has inevitably read this selection before, either in the pages of Eightball or in where it was already anthologized in Caricature five years ago. It's too bad that a newer representation of his past experiences couldn't be recounted here.Schrag's own stories perhaps best exemplify the charm of Stuck in the Middle, which on the whole manages to rise above a few disappointing moments. From the misadventure of "Plan on the Number 7 Bus" to the houseboat horrors of "Shit," she seems to have gotten the point of a few tortured pubescent moments, sharing as much about herself with the stories she has chosen as with her own way of remembering and re-imagining them.
It takes time, it takes distance, but our time in middle school can be remembered in a way that, if it isn't hilarious in hindsight, is at least not as mortifying as it seemed then.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age (Viking Children's)
(Viking Children's)Edited by Ariel Schrag
224 pages
List Price: $18.99
Issue #35
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