I read it in one sitting, and then read it again. It sounds wrong to say 'graphic memoir', but that's what this is. He's made a career doing award-winning illustrations for other people's stories. Turning to his own childhood, he lets the art tell most of the story, but uses words just so. It's as close to watching a movie while holding a book that I've ever come.

His childhood was not a happy one, but it's not that he's abandoned, or beaten. He's in a home with two parents, but there's little love or nurturing. This does not endear his parents to the reader, but you do feel a trickle of compassion for his mother after you meet her mother. The only time I recall his mother seeming protective of him was when she returned after leaving him alone with her mother, and realized that was a mistake.

I liked this comment by Jules Feiffer: "From its first line four pages in, 'Mama had her little cough,' we know that we are in the hands of a master."