At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents' Place

by Kate T. Williamson

After graduating from college and spending a magical year abroad writing the best-selling A Year in Japan, Kate T. Williamson felt ready for anything. But, like many a postgraduate, she needed some time to figure out just what that anything was. Her parents' house in Pennsylvania seemed like the perfect place for a brief layover, but twenty-three months later, Williamson was still contemplating the past and the future, while explaining to curious neighbors that, at present, her life was "at a crossroads." At a Crossroads is a unique graphic memoir about the common, yet little-discussed, "boomerang years." With sharp wit and expressive drawings, Williamson illustrates the joys, disappointments, comforts, and embarrassments of life back home with mom and dad. Highlights and low points include celebrating her twenty-fourth birthday at a Hall & Oates concert with her mother; noticing the train sounds from her bedroom for the first time; battling an infestation of squirrels; discovering that the ballet class she has signed up for is actually for children, and attending anyway; getting mail from her college crush, who has developed an interest in taxidermy; wearing a chain-mail belt of her own creation to her cousin's Renaissance-themed wedding. Moving from season to season, Williamson uses her delightful illustrations and vivid descriptions to discover the beauty and truth inside every hilarious episode. At a Crossroads is a book for young and old alike, or for anyone contemplating the little things worth noting in the times of our lives we often erase from our histories.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Memoir, Comics, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels Comics, The United States Of America, Comix

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2008

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an issue that so many are facing today...returning to the nest because building your own nest is not possible. Kate Williamson takes us into her life 'on hold' as she tries to find her way in the world and live up to the expectations of family and friends; but should she expect her own expectations to take place while she tries to conform to the 'Kate' everyone thinks they know?

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 3 out of 5]

personal, quiet, amateurish, mundane, understated, likable, very subtly poetic

[Arminzerella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kate T. Williamson came back from Japan to work on her book (A Year in Japan) and remained “at a crossroads” for a little over a year while she lived with her parents and planned what to do next. It’s a weird place to be – back in one’s old room, among people who knew you when (and not just family, but friends, neighbors, etc.), answering uncomfortable questions about what you’re doing with your life. This is what she did, what her life was like, how the seasons passed during that time.

I know exactly what Kate’s going through (sans the experience of trying to put together a book to publish – my piece de resistance was cobbling together my applications for graduate school), and probably every 20 or 30-something will recognize this same meandering and indecision in themselves (because we’ve all been there, right?). I don’t think she quite manages to bring that feeling into this work, though, because it reads more like a list of things she did, things that happened, without really getting inside the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen to you, and not knowing how you’re going to make it (something! anything!) happen. I still like her watercolors, and she makes some good selections for inclusion in this book (the cover image of her stretched out across the very pink carpeting of her very pink childhood bedroom – face down – is very appropriate). But it’s like nothing happens. Even with all of the things that happen. Nothing is very big. And it doesn’t express all of the stuff that’s got to be going on inside of her. My mother was intrigued by this book when I asked for it (yay, Christmas gift!) – she said, “You could have written this!” Possibly. But I would have included all of the jangly, foot-jiggling impatience I felt.

[Dov Zeller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so mundane it's mundane. Williamson's emotional life feels inaccessible and the memoir seems to be about stalwart ordinariness or else just being way out of touch with one's own emotional and intellectual processes. Or, there is a fierceness to Williamson's protection of her inner processes and her right to claim her unsophisticated taste for music and daily activity.

What makes this book work for me as much as it can work is her wonderful sense of humor and her quiet sense of the absurd and of completely unsublime awkwardness: Signing up for a ballet class she thinks is for adults and then finding herself in a class with kids half her age or younger and staying in it for no apparent reason (her particular form of inertia?); Being obsessed with Hall & Oates and refusing to be interested in a guy because he doesn't pass the "Hall & Oates" test; Taking roller skating lessons for no clear reason, at the age of 24(ish); Showing up at a baseball event--that she thinks is German dress-up themed--in lederhosen (and being the only one who is dressed up at all); Having some strange run-ins with squirrels including one in which she believes a squirrel she had removed from the rain gutter is giving her a reproachful look; Working at a florist shop and having a bit of a melt-down when someone asks for a 'funky' bouquet; Discovering a way to stop people who know her in small-town fashion from asking her questions about her life (this is where the title of the book comes from.)

Being from Pennsylvanian (well, I left in 1989, but I was born and raised there and I believe my family has been there for 4 generations? Some of my great-grandparents settled there after leaving the shtetl. And both my mother and father grew up there for the most part) and having grown up not far from Reading, and having been in my teens in the 80s, I could relate to a certain feeling of existential despair. My situation was very very different (being queer, having a strained and toxic relationship with my parents and apparent sibling). But something in here felt familiar. Maybe I can just relate to growing up with some embarrassing enthusiasm for mediocre music, or to some kind of protective withdrawal behind excessive normalcy, though I am not sure what for her is withdrawal and what is just very particular temperament and tastes that I can't contextualize or understand because she chooses not to offer that kind of narrative analysis.

This isn't an exciting book to read in terms of intellectual or emotional exploration, but there are interesting questions that came up for me when I read it--questions about what artistic taste is and adult behavior and artistic sophistication and how this all relates to artistic coming of age memoirs (portrait of an artist...) and graphic memoirs. This artist isn't seeking out any kind of intellectually engaged or counter-cultural community or experience and she isn't overtly grappling with big questions or trying to understand her place in the world or the universe (though I think it's in here in its way.)

All in all this is between a 2 and a 3 but very affectionately so. I don't know if I will check out "A Year in Japan". I'm curious on one hand, and on the other hand not sure I want to venture into the potentially strange and distancing world of another Williamson memoir.

[QNPoohBear · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this book about a young woman who returns to her parents' home after a magical year on her own. I sure can relate. I've been at a crossroads for a very long time. However, I wasn't thrilled with the way she chose to tell her story. Kate writes a lot about procrastinating, which I can also relate to, without stating she was procrastinating. What else is she doing besides writing a book? What are her career goals and aspirations? What has she been doing to achieve them? Nothing apparently. This memoir is filled with random silly things. I would have liked more about what she was feeling other than that one image on the cover. I also wanted to know how she arrived at her final decision, what she was going to to about finances and practical stuff. I didn't care about learning Hall and Oates lyrics- never heard of them, or anything else related to them, attending Cher's Farewell Tour. While learning to roller skate and learning ballet may be important to her, she doesn't really get into that. She just does. I did like the nights with boring parents, trying to hide from well-meaning neighbors and the cute little dog who looks just like the one I loved and cared for when I moved back home until she crossed over the Rainbow Bridge a few years later.

Kate is obviously a creative person and needs an outlet for her creative energies but this book isn't really it.

The illustrations are flat and uninspiring.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Yet another adorably cute graphic novel from an adorably cute 24-year-old hipster containing not even the slightest single bit of substance whatsoever. In this case, it's a record of the nearly two years the author spent living with her parents again as an adult, after getting back from a year in Asia and not knowing what to do with her life next; but what could've been a funny and wistful memoir about growing up (or at least a bitter and illuminating one) is instead an endless factual list of pointless minutia from this two-year period, like literally reading an operations log from the most cutely quirky military ship in history, which not even on a single page delivers even a single solitary insight into the human condition, other than that the author has an unhealthy obsession with '80s band Hall & Oates. Tolerable, I suppose, if you're in the habit of f-cking 24-year-old hipsters and need an obscure pop-culture reference to aid your quest to get laid ("Kate Williamson? I love Kate Williamson!"); but if you're not in the habit of f-cking 24-year-old hipsters, you should avoid this like the plague.

Out of 10: 4.1

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This autobiographical graphic novel takes us through a 2 year period when the narrator lives back in her parents' house after college while she's writing a book and thinking about what to do next. I really like the pace of it- funny chatty small anecdotes about her childhood room, various concerts she attends, her obsession with Hall and Oates (and that great punch-line about Phish), interactions with family, her general state of inertia, etc. are interspersed with pretty and wordless watercolors of the sky or snow or trees or her suburban street or what the foliage looked like through the screen of her window, which somehow tie it all together and give the whole thing a kind of magical feeling.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A graphic memoir (illustrated with little text) about post-college crossroads. As someone who has temporarily boomeranged back into their parents house for several months between adventures, I could relate to almost all of it -- sometimes scarily and hysterically so. And, as an 80s kid, I appreciated the Hall n' Oates and movie references, so... this one was kind of made for me. A quick read -- makes for a nice afternoon read.

[Arwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful book for anyone who has ever been in that weird, I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-with-my-life slump for a while. (Sort of like a midlife crisis only it can strike at any time.) Kate's endearingly rueful writing and beautiful watercolor illustrations are pitch perfect. Plus it will make you feel better because her story is as least as bad as yours.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this well-crafted book. I've read several similar memoirs, and this one goes to show you that their success (as books, not commercial success necessarily) is about good writing and (in this case) good art, not about unique or exciting experiences, or tongue-in-cheek cleverness. Some people can take a humble life intermission and make it interesting, and others can go to Paris and make it boring.

[Aurora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't think of another book that so perfectly captures post-college apathy. Sitting around your hometown, thinking about some things you should maybe do with your life, then just watching some squirrels for a while. Things seemed to have worked out for her pretty ok, so that's reassuring.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief graphic novel, but some things worth noting. Beautiful watercolors. Good evocation of central PA and what it's like to move back in with your parents. Nice 80s music references. Story pretty common, but that's probably the point.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully captures the awkward but wonderful lives we live in between the ones that fit more easily into other people's boxes of success.

[Athena Lathos · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* : I really like reading the reviews of a book right before I post my own--to get a sense of the "conversation" and all-- and it made me feel kind of sad that folks were so harsh on the content of this graphic memoir. I thought it was lovely and light and often charmingly funny (That bit where the narrator opens what she hopes will be a love letter from a crush and it contains his thoughts on taxidermy? Classic.) I do agree that the memoir doesn't do much by way of introspection or metaphor a la Bechdel or Tomine, but I suspect that the author/artist intended much more of a ~day in the life~ structure with this book, and I liked that. The sweet, relatively simple drawings reminded me a bit of Mari Andrew, and I enjoyed each of them. This would be an awesome gift for a post-grad twenty-something who is living with their parents and feeling kind of down. Though again, neither the narrative nor the protagonist offers a lot of opportunity for thought-provoking analysis, sometimes that's not what we need.

[jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to A Year in Japan. Kate has returned home from Japan, she is working on her book, living at her parents' house and generally avoiding making decisions that will force her life in any particular direction. In that way, Crossroads encapsulates that post-college mid-20s aimless ambivalence that takes over your life if you don't fall directly into a predestined career after graduation. I appreciated the awkward, terrible questions from family friends, her parents' friends, neighbors, family members, and childhood friends' parents about her plans for the future -- really, it is an awful position to answer those same questions over and over about how aimless you are. Kate's representation of those situations was authentically awkward.

I liked this book a little more than the previous book because it's more about her life and not just snippets of cultural artifacts, and there's more of a storyline. At the same time, there is not really a plot and not a lot of activity, unless you count the ways that Hall & Oates concerts become Cher concerts become Chicago concerts. The watercolor illustrations are pretty. I like how Kate uses perspective and scale to make the images more interesting. There are not any "tough questions" or complicated conflicts in this book. And isn't that like, so totally what post-college life is like.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is beautifully illustrated, with charming colors, playful perspective changes, symbolic images representing the seasons, closeups of animals, and telling details that scream a certain time, and place and class background. Since I'm from the same town, I could even recognize specific details which was just even better.

As well, the author is clearly quirky, intelligent, empathetic, and dealing with an awkward stage of life, between two worlds (or three) - her childhood, her time abroad, and her future, whatever that may be. She provides witty and goofy details that are delightful.

And yet.

This book doesn't go anything or say anything. It doesn't delve into any emotional conflicts, dreams, fears, desires. It doesn't really have a beginning, or even an ending. It doesn't, frankly, have a point.

So while I'd love to snap some pictures of some pages to send to an illustrator friend to admire or an old high school friend to reminisce, I really can't imagine who would actually want to buy and read this book.

[Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A follow up to her wonderful travel journal A Year in Japan, Kate T. Williamson's next graphic memoir explores the awkward period after her return from Japan she spent living with her parents working to get her book published. Continuing her expressive use of watercolor art to depict the beauty of everyday life, the changing of the seasons in her parent's neighborhood in Reading, Pennsylvania, and her struggles to decide which way to go at this crossroads in her life. Another very evocative piece of work, I found this book even more relatable, having spent some time living with my parents in that period between college and career and so much of her experiences echo my own, only expressed with such elegance and wit. A fun and quick read!

[edel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and relatively short read. As a whole, the read is quite simple but the simplicity of the "every day life" makes you appreciate the little things. I love the drawings. Absolutely love them! Especially the detail that Kate puts into them. In one of the pages, she states that the owner of a roller skating rink turned off half of the lights. I counted the lights and counted the lights unlit. Sure enough, half of them where off! Not mention that I loved the intimacy her drawings had. The faces expressive yet (once again) simple. Also, my favourite pages were the ones that depicted the seasons going by.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted more with this book. I like the subtlety of it, the idea of figuring out place and space in the world--I feel like it just didn't hold up. The artwork is ok--I enjoyed the pages without people and text the most--just not as exciting as I would have liked. And, though some of the cheeky reminiscing made me smile, I felt like the story was both disjointed and at the same time lacking. Maybe I've just read too many outstanding graphic novels and my expectations are too high?

Anyway, my two cents. It's a quick read, but I'd focus on others you really want to delve into before you spend time on this one.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of expected this to be better than it was. The art in the novel is really well done and I quite enjoyed looking at it much more than I did reading it. It did have interesting parts, but I found it hard to keep my interest especially since it was such a disjointed sort of story. The main character kind of reminded me of myself. It was kind of odd that way but it was a quite a "cute" story with good art.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had lovely artwork, but the story was really haphazardly written and offered no fresh perspective. It's a quick read and takes maybe 30 minutes at the most to get through, but I was left with a feeling of "ok...and?"

Also, the author just decides at the end to move to NYC with no job after working part-time in a flower shop for a few months? Why? What will she do there? Like I said, it just seemed haphazard and almost rushed.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

April 2018: I reeeaaallly enjoyed reading this. I found it at Half Moon in Kingston, where I consistently find perfect things I wasn't looking for, and it's just incredibly charming. Quiet little thoughtful interlude between lives, lovingly rendered in watercolor.

May 2020: I reread this because it is exceptional and pleasing and I am in search of those qualities in art and story right now. It is also incredibly funny. Just a really singular and lovely bit of work.

[Roberta Frontini (Blogue FLAMES) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gostei.. as ilustrações são qualquer coisa, mas faltou algo na história para que se tornasse num livro de 5 estrelas :)

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Harvard graduate hangs out at her parents' house for two years. And it's really boring.

The premise of a crossroads in adulthood is really relatable, but it lacked the introspection and wit to make worth a read. Williamson didn't have anything fresh to say about what it means to feel behind your peers and to be uncertain about what's ahead. There doesn't seem to be any progression of thought in the whole of the book. There's good material for humor, but the delivery is flat. At least there's some good artwork?

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

I connected with the author in this short graphic novel, the feeling of being at home yet utterly adrift. The narrative is down-to-earth and zen like. The intermittent two-page illustrations are a beautiful breathing space between anecdotes.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Understated wonder. Her illustrations speak volumes of that "in-between" feeling that can hit you during any transition in your life. The sadness and small joys are presented in watercolour marks and stains, drips and drops of time passing by while others seem to be living it fully.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this graphic novel in one sitting. I enjoyed the detail in the watercolour paintings, especially the exterior of her parents'home on a snowy Pennsylvania day. The text is written on cursive, which could be a challenge for some.

[Cameron Toney · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slice of life that lots of us can understand- the author comes to live at home for longer than she bargained for, while trying to sort out what comes next.
A relatable work, but not one I found especially gripping.

[Rinku · Rating 4 out of 5]

I own her book about Japan. The drawings like this book were beautiful. I liked the honesty of this book and I liked the author's perseverance. I recommend this book as an uplifting and relaxing read.