An unhappy and overweight adolescent, April Taylor struggles to cope with the desertion and death of her father, the suicide of her mother, her new life with her lesbian sister, and her doubts about her own sexual orientation.

When Wittels Wachs's younger brother Harris died of a heroin overdose, she didn't know how to make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance. Here she alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, and the first year after his death. Even in all its emotional devastation, this exploration of the love between siblings will make you laugh, cry ... and wonder if that possum on the fence is really your brother's spirit...

This book takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It's a father-daughter tale perfectly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out,...