Time Under Tension

Harkness’s third graphic memoir picks up after the events of Tinderella and Desperate Pleasures as she enters the adult world dragging a heavy load of childhood baggage. Harkness graduates from art school and begins studying to become a personal trainer, an outgrowth of her ongoing passion for weight lifting. On the side, she deals drugs, does sex work to afford a ticket to Pittsburgh for an art residency, and hooks up with Murmur, an aspiring UFC fighter. Through it all, she struggles to move past her trauma, especially when her father, who is now in prison for molesting her, tries to contact her. In lavishly drawn collage spreads, Harkness unspools her family history, noting deep-rooted patterns of abuse and reflecting, “The arch of time may bend, but a pressure builds.” Harkness’s art has evolved throughout her memoir trilogy, developing into a muscular aesthetic of strong, solid blacks and abstracted characters built from spiky or swooping lines. To readers hoping for a resolution that might tie up her story’s many narrative threads, she warns, “Life is too wrong and true and boring and hilarious to ever cleanly pin down.” Harkness’s work is consistently tough, funny, and candid, and this plunge into the depths of her gloriously messy life is her strongest outing yet. (Oct.)