Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir
Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? (2012) explored a lesbian cartoonist’s relationship with her mother, both in the past and in the present. Georges’ memoir may be broadly categorized as examining similar ground in the same format, but here the memories, the mother, and the cartoonist herself bring very different details to the work, and thus provide a very different tale. Georges’ quirky, big-faced, and evocative drawings, tempered by a variety of panel sizes, show the bespectacled author as she comes to terms with her mother’s lies to her as a child about her father being dead; her girlfriend’s impatience with the adult Georges’ tolerance for her mother’s intolerance; the clutch of dogs (and a chicken or three) and the stuffed animals who safeguard Georges’ sense of security in both youth and young adulthood; and the attraction Dr. Laura Schlessinger offers in her pat, specific directions for relief from the discomforts of uncertainty. An excellent graphic memoir offering engaging insights for those who share—or don’t share—any of Georges’ worries and traits. --Francisca Goldsmith