Shelf Life: Doonesbury’s Heroes

FOR over three decades, cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s comic strip Doonesbury has chronicled political history, and achieved iconic status in the process. But the chief reason the strip endures is not the political sarcasms it indulges-most of us do not, after all, need Trudeau to tell us the Watergate conspirators were “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”; and his other political views tend to be markedly less defensible-but rather its adept, sometimes breathtaking, observations of ordinary American life. For Trudeau is a master of the kind of social comedy that cuts very close to the bone; he is a sympathetic observer of mores whose sentiment strikes home precisely because the author studiously avoids sentimentality.

The new Doonesbury book, The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time (Andrews McMeel, 93 pp., $9.95), is one of the high points of Trudeau’s career. In this volume, onetime college quarterback “B.D.” loses a leg in Iraq, and copes with his new life as an amputee. Without bathos-and without political point-scoring-Trudeau depicts how real people survive this kind of physical and emotional devastation. The sense of humor is mordant and adroit. For example, a doctor is explaining B.D.’s amputation to one of the patient’s fellow soldiers: “Your buddy’s coming to, soldier. You can go see him . . . You should know that few things are as traumatic as losing a limb. Amputees go through a grieving process, starting with denial, then anger . . .” He is interrupted by a loud shout from behind the patient’s curtain: “Son of a bitch!” The doctor continues:

About the Author

Michael Potemra

Michael Potemra was a literary editor for National Review.

Featured Tags

FOR over three decades, cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s comic strip Doonesbury has chronicled political history, and achieved iconic status in the process. But the chief reason the strip endures is not the political sarcasms it indulges-most of us do not, after all, need Trudeau to tell us the Watergate conspirators were “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”; and his other political views tend to be markedly less defensible-but rather its adept, sometimes breathtaking, observations of ordinary American life. For Trudeau is a master of the kind of social comedy that cuts very close to the bone; he is a sympathetic observer of mores whose sentiment strikes home precisely because the author studiously avoids sentimentality.

The new Doonesbury book, The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time (Andrews McMeel, 93 pp., $9.95), is one of the high points of Trudeau’s career. In this volume, onetime college quarterback “B.D.” loses a leg in Iraq, and copes with his new life as an amputee. Without bathos-and without political point-scoring-Trudeau depicts how real people survive this kind of physical and emotional devastation. The sense of humor is mordant and adroit. For example, a doctor is explaining B.D.’s amputation to one of the patient’s fellow soldiers: “Your buddy’s coming to, soldier. You can go see him . . . You should know that few things are as traumatic as losing a limb. Amputees go through a grieving process, starting with denial, then anger . . .” He is interrupted by a loud shout from behind the patient’s curtain: “Son of a bitch!” The doctor continues: