The Year of Loving Dangerously: A Graphic Memoir
Written by Ted Rall
Illustrated by Pablo G. Callejo
Published by NBM/ComicsLit
In 1984, Columbia student Ted Rall was expelled from college and deposited outside the school dorms. With little money, no job, and too much pride, Rall began a months-long ordeal of … well, finding shelter with women he was able to seduce. His story is chronicled in his new book The Year of Loving Dangerous.
I’ll say this for The Year of Loving Dangerously, at no point does Rall apologize for his behavior. He does acknowledge that being totally dependent on the women in his life for basics like food, the emotional connection became more difficult. The fundamental imbalance of need made it difficult for Rall to give himself emotionally. It’s an interesting outlook, and Rall puts his feelings across fairly clearly. That said, toward the end, when Rall gets his feet underneath him, he does occasionally come across as bragging a bit. It may bother some readers, may not bother others. Use your own prudence.
Among the book’s most intriguing aspects is the possibility of the biased, unreliable narrator. Rall’s stories of losing his job and the rationale for his expulsion from Columbia manage to squeeze together a nearly unbelievable number of extraordinarily unlikely coincidences. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but you can’t help but wonder what some of his former professors would say if telling this story from their perspective.
Rall does a fine job laying out the story, weaving his year of dangerous love with flashbacks that explain his predicament. It’s an impressive balancing act, and he makes it work. The dialogue is convincing, and most of the women are presented as realized, if perhaps needy, young ladies.
By comparison, Rall doesn’t full achieve an emotional representation of himself. As he writes with the eye of his current self looking back with certain confidence, and as the circumstances leading to his homelessness are completely beyond his own control, you never feel that he’s truly emotionally devastated. Scenes depicting him as such feel slightly flat.
Pablo G. Callejo, matching the writing, does a solid job with the art. The line art is effective, and he lays out pages clearly. The water balloon sequence is particularly well done. On the other hand, the coloring is over-saturated and the occasional use of photographic backgrounds for large cityscapes distracts.
With all this in mind, I’d say that The Year of Loving Dangerously is solid, but comes up somewhat short of being must-read. If you’re a fan of comic memoirs, yet maybe a little sick of socially inept, nebbish autobio, Rall provides an effective antidote.
