Late Bloomer

    (Fantagraphics, 2005)
™ and © 2005 C. Tyler

From the Publisher:

For two decades, C. Tyler has been recounting her life’s experiences through a series of vignettes and reminiscences, both funny and melancholic. Late Bloomer is the long-awaited collection of these stories, presented here in a “seasonal” triptych format.

“Early Varieties” spotlights Tyler’s childhood and includes “The Return of Mrs. Kite” (an elderly relative falls for a smooth talker), “Uncovered Properly” (the value of carefully applied nudity) and “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (an up close and uncomfortably personal sketch of the working class).

In “Mid-Seasonals,” Tyler’s quirky chronicles continue, only now with child0in-tow. Stories include “Migrant Mother” (the horror of cross-country air travel with an out-of-control toddler), the spirited rant “Why I’m Agin’ Southern Min and her defense of her little one in “Just a Bad Seed.”

And finally, in “Full Bloomers,” the older and wiser Tyler reflects on such subjects as “Country Music,” patriotism and “American Labels”—but these gentle meditations are bracketed by the mournful reflection on loss “Gone” and the harrowing finaly story, “The Outrage,” which was created especially for this book. Its’s a tale of rage and postpartum depression that confirms R. Crumb’s assertion in his introduction that Tyler’s “level of honesty about herself is even shocking at times.”
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August, 2005
Cover Price: $28.95
2 copies available from $27.00 		C. Tyler, Robert CrumbC. Tyler