Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux

Copyright Date: 2017

Edition Date: 2017 Release Date: 03/14/17

Pages: 1 volume (unpaged)

ISBN: 1-7704-6270-8

ISBN 13: 978-1-7704-6270-0

Dewey: Fic

LCCN: 2017392044

Dimensions: 16 x 29 cm.

Subject Heading:
Middle-aged women. Comic books, strips, etc. Fiction.
Social isolation. Comic books, strips, etc. Fiction.
Forest animals. Comic books, strips, etc. Fiction.
Forests and forestry. Comic books, strips, etc. Fiction.
Human-animal relationships. Comic books, strips, etc. Fiction.

Language: English

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Library Journal

Reading Level: 7.0

Interest Level: 9+

A Johnson has his Boswell and every Sticks Angelica has her Michael DeForge Sticks Angelica is, in her own words, "49 years old. Former: Olympian, poet, scholar, sculptor, minister, activist, Governor General, entrepreneur, line cook, headmistress, Mountie, columnist, libertarian, cellist." After a high-profile family scandal, Sticks escapes to the woods to live in what would be relative isolation were it not for the many animals that surround and inevitably annoy her. Sticks is an arrogant self-obsessed force who wills herself on the flora and fauna. There is a rabbit named Oatmeal who harbors an unrequited love for her, a pair of kissing geese, a cross-dressing moose absurdly named Lisa Hanawalt. When a reporter named, ahem, Michael DeForge shows up to interview Sticks for his biography on her, she quickly slugs him and buries him up to his neck, immobilizing him. Instead, Sticks narrates her way through the forest, recalling formative incidents from her storied past in what becomes a strange sort of autobiography. DeForge's witty dialogue and deadpan narration create a bizarre, yet eerily familiar world. Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero plays with autobiography, biography, and hagiography to look at how we build our own sense of self and how others carry on the roles we create for them in our own personal dramas.