Flying Couch, Amy Kurzweil’s debut, tells the stories of three unforgettable women. Amy’s own coming-of-age as a young Jewish artist weaves into the narrative of Amy’s mother, a therapist, and Amy’s Bubbe, a World War Two survivor who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto by passing herself off as a Gentile in Nazi-occupied Poland. A telling of the inherited Holocaust narrative now two generations removed,Flying Couch investigates the legacy of trauma, the magic of family stories, and the strength of Amy’s remarkable, hilarious Bubbe in a style that echoes Chris Ware, Marjane Satrapi, Art Speigelman, and Nicole Krauss. But it’s Amy’s playful sensibility and her fascination with the way our memoriesand our familiesshape who we become that make this illustrated memoir a bold and original coming-of-age story and an important entry into the literature of the Holocaust.
