Don’t know if it’s the dire days of 2025 or what, but I had to laugh (so as not to cry?) while reading Spent, which felt bleakly, hysterically absurdist, a parody/satire but not without care and all too true in the way it represents the daily buzzing oversaturated mania of the hypercurrent time we live in. Poking fun at cliches of those aligned on far and opposite ends of the political spectrum, Bechdel, with humor, tugs at the impossible and insane moral quandaries of trying to make meaning, make art, make anything–focus! while everyone is drowning in “content” and grabbing at shredded attention spans and money while the world burns/floods/landslides (terrifyingly apocalyptic to realize that we’re in this dystopia NOW) and ethical consumption (and maybe ethical anything) is impossible. And yet…I enjoyed reading Spent, couldn’t look away from the train wreck we’re in. It doesn’t land hopelessly either, but instead lets go of grandiosity and the large scale, landing on the fact that we are still here and we’ve got to take care of each other in the day-to-day.
Spent by Alison Bechdel, (List Price: $32, Mariner Books, 9780063278929, May 2025)
Reviewed by Julie Jarema, Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg, South Carolina