Chlorine gardens - Softcover

"The genius of her staccato narrative style is how aptly she conjures both the weight of a major medical diagnosis and a child's tantrum; the weirdness of her work manages to be both profoundly earthbound and out of this world." - Publishers Weekly "Roberts' autobiographical comic skitters through stories of parenting, family life, and illness with deadpan wit and narrative ingenuity." - Slate Book Review "Roberts's deadpan humor dissects pregnancy, child-rearing, art making, mental illness, and an MS diagnosis in this diary style collection of dark humor." - Meg Lemke, Publishers Weekly "Roberts is a unique and nuanced storyteller, and this proves her best, richest book yet." - Publishers Weekly, starred review, 30 July 2018 "Cartoonist Keiler Roberts doesn't shy away from pain in her autobiographical work, understanding that the hard parts of life are what make the joys so valuable. Her work is as delightful as it is harrowing, exploring how these different emotions often intersect" - Oliver Sava, The A.V. Club "In her autobiographical work, Keiler Roberts provides readers with an intimate, unvarnished peek into the life of a bipolar artist and mother. The pencil-drawn stories are sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy and often both." - Joel Oliphint, Columbus Alive, 26 September 2018 "The key to understanding [Roberts'] work is that though she talks about subjects that are sometimes quotidian and sometimes deeply personal and serious, Roberts always thinks like a performer. However deadpan she might be on a page, she tends to think of whether or not an audience might find this interesting or funny." - Rob Clough, Your Chicken Enemy "Roberts' work will delight readers interested in humorous meditations on illness and its effect on everyday life." - Alenka Figa, Women Write About Comics "Roberts' clear, uncomplicated visuals always have an expressive clarity and the most telling of visual characterization, and Chlorine Gardens is another collection of incisive short strips from one of the finest autobio practitioners working in the medium." - Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier "When we read her black-and-white panels, we don't feel ashamed of our moments of imperfection; instead, we feel seen." - Megan Liberty, Hyperallergic "Roberts presents her life a wife, mother, neighbor and artist, multiple priorities pulling her in many different directions, but she's also keenly aware that these quotidian mini-crises are what ultimately make the tapestry of a life." - Heidi MacDonald, The Comics Beat "We're blessed with many fine graphic memoirists these days, but with Chlorine Gardens, Keiler Roberts firmly establishes herself as being at the head of the class." - Ryan Carey, Ryan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Dealing with pregnancy, child-rearing, art-making, mental illness, and an MS diagnosis, the parts of Chlorine Gardens' sum sound heavy, but Keiler Roberts' gift is the deft drollness in which she presents life's darker moments. She doesn't whistle past graveyards, but rather finds the punch line in the pitiful.