Borrowed in Brooklyn

BPL · Book · 2025

Spent : a comic novel

Alison Bechdel

In Alison Bechdel’s hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. She wonders: Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege? Meanwhile, Alison’s first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It’s a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel’s beloved comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For). As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy—and when Alison’s Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral—Alison’s own envy spirals. Why couldn’t she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show…like Queer Eye...showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?!! Spent’s rollicking and masterful denouement—making the case for seizing what’s true about life in the world at this moment, before it’s too late—once again proves that “nobody does it better” (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel."--

Demand pressureiDemand pressure: composite score across the 12 tracked branches — rewards low availability, branches all out, recent drops, and (when exposed) public hold counts. Higher = harder to get borough-wide.

455

Available

5/11

Branches all out

5/8

Public holdsiPublic holds: BPL exposes 'people waiting' at the bib (record) level — one number per work for the entire 60+ branch BPL system, NOT just the 12 tracked branches. We capture the number when it's there. 'Not exposed' means BPL didn't expose it on this scrape — we never substitute zero for missing data.

not exposed

ISBN 9780063278929