The Year of Loving Dangerously

by Ted Rall, Pablo G. Callejo (Illustrator), Xaviera Hollander (Introduction)

Here’s a new turn for the controversial cartoonist and commentator Ted Rall. Not only is this autobiographical but he has paired up with the acclaimed artist of Bluesman and The Castaways for fully painted art. It’s the eighties and Ted is in college in New York City and slipping. His pranks, lack of focus and restlessness get him kicked out of school. Unable to find a job, rejected by his parents, he’s on the verge of suicide. Instead he finds comfort in the arms of many women he meets casually and puts up a front for. Hey, better than being homeless and begging, but then… is it? It may sound like an ideal grift but the toll is much higher than one may imagine. Between acidly funny and disturbingly real, Rall, a cartoonist whose work has alienated half the world, pours out his guts on a hard turning point in his life. Callejo adopts a new fully painted color style for this work, showing his versatility.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Memoir, Nonfiction, Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Biography

128 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Ted Rall is a prominent left-leaning American political columnist, syndicated editorial cartoonist, and author. He draws cartoons for the news site WhoWhatWhy.org and the email newsletter Counterpoint, and writes for The Wall Street Journal opinion pages.

His political cartoons often appear in a multi-panel comic-strip format and frequently blend comic-strip and editorial-cartoon conventions.

The cartoons appear in approximately 100 newspapers around the United States. He is a former President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and twice the winner of the RFK Journalism Award.

He is the author of 20 books.

Reviews

[Rod Brown]

Waste of time. I picked this up because the cover didn't look familiar, but it ended up being the revised 2019 edition of a book I had read a decade before. I didn't like it then, and I do not like it now. By the way, if you're going to put out a revised edition, why not fix all the errors -- misspellings, word omissions -- in the text?

Anyhow, Rall presents himself as an entitled ass whose problems are always someone else's fault. He ends up suspended from Columbia University and chooses homelessness for a summer because, "My mom would happily wire me some cash, but her price, humiliation and infantilization, would be too high."

The marketing pushes how he slept with women in order to avoid sleeping on the streets, but he really doesn't spend much time on that and does little to develop the women as characters even though he mostly rotated regularly through only a handful of them.

The writing is very episodic with no real structure or arc. The art is stiff and mediocre.

[Smiley McGrouchpants Jr.]

What a surprise! I happened across this at Powell's, and, wow, did Rall have a wild transit in his early life.

Spider-like, you can almost see him scampering across a societal scaffolding, to keep from plummeting off the real-world map. Scary!

The sort of choices that come up are rare and strange indeed — only in New York City.

The artwork's great, and the pace runs at a good clip.

Opens questions about how much largesse one needs in order to have one's liberty — or how much the largesse of people around you can just possibly give you safe passage to hide in, tentatively, briefly, for a while.

Whew!

Rowdy and funny, it's another side of the political cartoonist you always loved (for Jihad Slacker and other works) with his inner core exposed. Don't pass this up!

[George Ilsley]

This came across as flat. There was no ending and Rall spends more time describing his druggy friend Chris than he does any of his girlfriends. The text has a number of typos (“evil free-market capitalism” is rendered as “evil-free market capitalism” which put a whole new spin on the concept!).

Rall admits not knowing what the girls see in him and this reader did not know either. The best part of this book is the memorabilia, such as Reagan/Bush posters.

[Lukas]

An interesting premise marred by an unclear narrative and average art. Rall's exploits as a homeless university student are at times funny and insightful, but the book never coalesces into anything solid.

It flirts with greatness, touching upon the nature of intimacy, love, career and even best friends. Sadly, these brief ruminations remain just that. Not a terrible read, but I can't say I would recommend it to anyone.

[Meghan Hunt]

I thought the premise of this book was compelling and the illustrations were great, but the ending was a big let down. I wanted to know how this experience affected him in the long run. Also, I thought I would have more sympathy for the author for his homelessness, but I didn't find him that likable. I think a stronger look into his emotional side would have helped with this.

[Trevor]

What started as an interesting read, quickly deteriorated into a boring story, about a guy who was down on his luck. Due to the story narrative, which should have been interesting, not being engaging, I really didn't care what happened to this guy.

This was a disappointing read.

[Nikki]

One of those graphic novels that is a ridiculously quick read--I read the whole thing in an hour after picking it up off of a library shelf. While it does provide insight into the life of Ted Rall and has some good cultural moments of NYC in the eighties, it is very much a "newly-dead beat tries to make money".
I think the title of this book is also inappropriate. While there is a ridiculous amount of sex going on in this book, there is barely any love, and very few meditations on what all of the debauchery means.

[Salamah]

Interesting story about a man who became homeless during the 80's and slept with all kinds of women for a place to stay, food and clothing. The illustrations were pretty good. The part about the 500 pound woman was funny too. The book is a sort of coming of age story of a 20 year old. Reminds me of students today who cannot get their act together!!

[GRReviewer]

A really detailed look into one year in Ted Rall's life (1984) when he was expelled from college (Columbia) and screwed everything that moved (well, almost) in order to stay in a warm bed. He was sort of an idiot and makes no attempts to hide it.

[Susan]

This guy was born the same year as me so I really related to his experiences. Except my own falling down saga happened more recently. Worth the read.

[Immigration Art]

Ted Rall, one of America's top political cartoonists and social commentators, offers this memoir, in cartoon form, of his Columbia University "college years" in the early 1980s. It was the go-go years of NYC in mid-town and downtown on Wall Street. Reagan. Ed Koch. Jersey Girls with big hair. NYC women in the workforce wearing business attire in loud colors and festooned with giant shoulder pads.

But uptown, at Columbia, Ted Rall was hitting the skids. He experienced a medical emergency, caused by a freak occurrence (eventually written-up in a medical journal due to its extremely odd nature). He was thrown out of Columbia. He was tossed out of his campus housing. He was broke, with no place to live.

The upshot if this honest and gritty coming-of-age story set against the glitz and glamor of NYC of the 80s is this, in the words of the Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander, who wrote the introduction to the 2009 Hardcover edition:

"Ted managed to . . . exploit his looks in return for financial reward [he slept with a year's worth of college-aged and young women in the work world in exchange for a place to sleep. He did this for about] a year until he got back on his feet."

"Ted didn't wallow in self pity . . .he embraced life and sex, even when they came about in unconventional ways. He loved and respected women and loved every minute of his sexual adventures. He is not a cad . . . 'The Year of Loving Dangerously' may be the first sex-positive book written by a typical, well-adjusted, heterosexual American man."

AND THAT is a hell of an endorsement from the Happy Hooker! Finally, the ending is hopeful, happy and closes in the place where it all started -- in the city that never sleeps.

[Theediscerning]

An overly wordy comic about a guy who wants to have his cake and eat it, even while never liking the taste. Dumped by his university, unwilling to find a job, almost homeless, he stumbles into a routine of living as a gigolo, only taking room and board off the 'lucky ladies', as opposed to selling himself properly. This carries on too long for his liking, while he tries to find a flat with his junkie friend and wannabe colleague. The book carried on too long for my liking, while the narrator yacked on and on about his First World Problem, until it stopped. Are we supposed to think 'there but for the grace of Dog go I'? Yeah – right.

[Chad]

This was OK. I liked it more as a book about living in New York in the 80's than about this guy sleeping with different women every night because he couldn't afford a place to live after getting kicked out of Columbia. There's just very little story here and there's nothing connecting these little asides together. At times they even felt out of order. I don't know, I just thought there'd be more to it.

[Michael]

Okay. Memoir about being expelled from Columbia, jobless, moneyless and essentially sleeping with various women until he can get back on his feet. Not much more insight than any run of the mill comic memoir, however.

Line work isn't too bad, but the coloring is super-saturated and looks bad.

[Karah]

I delayed reading this book for over two years and I am pleased. I don't think Ted proved unethical in his quest to stay housed. I would have resorted to similar measures. He stayed down for a short period. But destitution feels tortuous and torture takes long. I wonder what happened to Chris. He seemed transitory.

[Christine]

Put yourself in the mind of a 21yo (ish) unwilling Columbia dropout in the early 80s. Watch him take advantage of his young good looks to snag a warm bed as an informal gigolo, entertaining his woman of the day, to escape sleeping on the cruel streets of NYC.

His expulsion occurred because he (seems to be) a first generation college student that doesn’t have the family clout to encourage the Dean to make an exception for him. (I think his drug-addled Wall Street friend would have had Daddy call the Dean and would have ended up with a get out of jail free card. He would have been back in school for senior year, no harm, no foul.)

The print was a little small for me. Hard to read, even when wearing my glasses instead of my contacts!

[Ocean]

i was interested in this book because i used to be homeless-but-not-homeless, like the author (although not for as long as he was, thank gawd). but this book isn't really about that; it's mostly not-too-interesting-or-well-written story about his sexual exploits. blah!

[Mza]

... cartoonist who's not a misfit with women ... rare bird ...... In her intro, Xaviera Hollander says something like, "Hetero males aren't usually sex-positive" ... which statement was more amusing to me than anything in the actual story ......

... competently written, dully drawn ...

[Joe]

I like this Ted Rall fellow and this year out of his life was pretty entertaining. The backdrop of Reagan 80's NYC is interesting too. The art is good and the color is a nice touch I wouldn't have expected for a graphic novel like this.

[Whatsupchuck]

A young man hits rock bottom, but avoids street life homelessness by hooking up with different women each night.

Autobiographical

Very human, full of hindsight wisdom.

The introduction and foreword were just as good as the content.

[Mandy]

Quick read about a guy who is expelled from Columbia and has to sleep around to have a bed to sleep on

[Jessica]

It wasn't bad. Interesting story. Still, Rall's storytelling could use a bit of work, and it didn't make me want to run out and recommend it to everyone I knew or anything.

[Keon]

An honest chronicle about a douchebag - I admire the honesty but its not engaging. The women in his life seem interchangeable Barbie types and in the end it didn't feel like it amounted to much.

[Ficie]

The illustrations are great, and the story is well told. I really felt for Ted's downturns in luck.
Unfortunately the story is ultimately unaccomplished, and seems to end mid-way.

[Vanessa]

oh whatEVER dude