While it’s still accurate to describe Knisley as a memoirist, I now think that a different label makes much more sense, especially with Kid Gloves and her previous book, Something New: Tales From a Makeshift Bride. But here’s the thing - I was wrong about her. Six books by age 34 is no small accomplishment. She attended both the School of the Art Institute and The Center for Cartoon Studies. Knisley is an award-winning and New York Times best-selling author. 'Yes, I make work about food and art & travel BUT THERE IS MEANING IN IT if to no one else but me.'Īnd clearly others have found meaning in her work as well. I am aware of that,' she writes in 2014’s An Age of License. Knisley has long acknowledged her privilege. Her five autobiographical graphic novels recall the mostly charmed twenties of a middle class American white woman. Until giving Kid Gloves a serious read, I thought of Knisley solely as a memoirist. She’s torn between being a romantic (clearly where her desires lie) and her more practical side, which keeps her up at night and ultimately governs many of her decisions.Before I get into reviewing Lucy Knisley’s new book, Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos, I need to own up to something. Knisley’s mind always worries away, trying to figure out what path she should take.

Thankfully, at least for the cynical among us, the book doesn’t stop there. Plus, License revels in the flush of new romance, as she and aforementioned Swede Henrik fall into bed, smooch on the street and generally behave the way young lovers in Europe are supposed to. There’s plenty of excellent food along the way, and there are many picturesque moments she observes and renders in her trademark neatly-inked lines, fleshed out with occasional watercolor. Invited to speak at the Raptus Comics Festival in Norway, the author takes the opportunity to gallivant a bit around Europe, meeting up with a cute Swedish boy she’d encountered in the U.S., friends who live in France and her mother. Ostensibly, the project is a travelogue more similar to Knisley’s debut, French Milk, than to last year’s Relish, which traced memoir in personal food history. Knisley will turn 30 this next year, and although An Age of License takes place in 2011, the book is colored by the ambiguity and exploration that tend to accompany one’s late twenties. An Age of License may only be her third book for a publisher other than herself, but she’s done much more between anthology contributions, illustration work and her semi-regular online comics.

Lucy Knisley has focused almost entirely on autobiographical work so far, unpacking her neuroses, love affairs and the mundane moments of her daily life into colorful cartoon narratives.

An Age of License by Lucy Knisley