Never forget /
to connect the dots /
This book is an attempt to connect a couple.
In Begin by Telling, experimental pop sensation Meg Remy (U.S. Girls)
spins a web out from her body to myriad corners of American
hyper-culture. Through illustrated lyric essays depicting visceral
memories from early childhood to present day, Remy paints a stark
portrait of a spectacle-driven country.
As though channel surfing, we catch glimpses of Desert Storm, the
Oklahoma City Bombing, random street violence, the petrochemical
industry, small town Deadheads, a toilet with uterus lining in it, the
county STD clinic, and missionaries at the front door. Each is shared
through language of the body; the sensation of experiencing many of the
defining events and moments of a country.
Immersive and utterly compelling, the threads in Begin by Telling
nimbly interweave with probing quotes and statistics, demonstrating the
importance of personal storytelling, radical empathy, and the necessity
of reflecting on society and one's self within that construct.