Review: Drawing Blood
Book Reviews
Drawing Blood
Molly Crabapple
HarperCollins
Street: 12.15
When you follow someone online, you can absorb all the media that they have curated, but it only gives you a surface of the picture, an inch in a mural. If you follow Molly Crabapple online, you might know bits and pieces, but in Drawing Blood, we get a chance to really dive into what makes her tick, what drives her art and why the lowbrow workers are the stars of her illustrations, with the upper-class left as pigs on the sidelines. Drawing Blood should be required reading for everyone who wants to leave a mark on a world that otherwise wants to erase their humanity. Drawing from the experience of being a woman, worker, performer, traveler and activist, Crabapple leads readers on a journey from underground sex worker turned established artist, and later, a crucial storyteller. While she acknowledges her privilege during the Occupy protests, she stays true to her roots, unable to forget or leave behind the ground she built herself from. I found myself intoxicated by her stories, desperate to finish the book and absorb all her words like a drunk squeezing into the bar before last call. Seriously, go read this.–Brinley Froelich