Bechdel is one of Vermont’s state treasures.  She had been well known in Lesbian circles for her column ‘Dykes to Watch Our For’ when she published a graphic memoir, “Fun Home” in 2006. The New York Times and the London Times listed it as a ‘best book’; Time magazine included it in its Ten Best list, and it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Bechdel collaborated with other women to bring an adaptation of “Fun Home’ to the stage where it won five Tonys for its 2015 Broadway production.

Since then, Bechdel has produced two more graphic memoirs, “Are you My Mother” and  “The Secret to Superhuman Strength”.  While “Spent” is blurbed as a novel, the book features Bechdel and her wife Holly (who did the coloring of the graphics) are real people accompanied by a cast of Vermont’s typical folks—lesbians, polyamorous groups, alcoholics, academics, drop outs, vegans, and farmers raising rescue pygmy goats—all of them working to improve the world and eliminate social injustice.  The cover cleverly shows Bechdel and Holly in a parody of Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’.

The title is a play on words referring to Bechdel’s exhaustion and frustration as a book she has written “Death and Taxidermy” is converted into a bizarre and distorted TV series.  Ironically, the series has made her famous and relatively well off, but the pressure to generate more income and new creative works has her ‘spent’.  It also refers to the accumulation of worldly goods as Holly and she spend more to maintain their rising lifestyle.  Spent is also how Alison feels as she struggles to write a new TV series and a new book, ironically addressing the destructive elements of capitalism as she frets over the need for money.  Finally, (or perhaps, not finally?), spent refers to the aftermath of coitus, an activity that is central to the book as various characters pair or (what’s the correct term for more than 2?) group off for sexual adventure and excitement.

All in all, Bechdel’s book is a delightful romp through today’s rural Vermont with its lack of snow, mud season, old hippies still living in communal settings, and the young generation continuing to push the boundaries of just about everything.

Bechdel might not be for everyone, but I look forward to her next book.