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    Over Easy
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    Over Easy
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    Over Easy
    Ebook270 pages8 minutes

    Over Easy

    By Mimi Pond

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A fast-paced semi-memoir about diners, drugs, and California in the 1970s


    Over Easy is a brilliant portrayal of a familiar coming-of-age story. After being denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret finds salvation from the straightlaced world of college and the earnestness of both hippies and punks in the wisecracking, fast-talking, drug-taking group she encounters at the Imperial Caf , where she makes the transformation from Margaret to Madge. At first she mimics these new and exotic grown-up friends, trying on the guise of adulthood with some awkward but funny stumbles. Gradually she realizes that the adults she looks up to are a mess of contradictions, misplaced artistic ambitions, sexual confusion, dependencies, and addictions.
    Over Easy is equal parts time capsule of late 1970s life in California--with its deadheads, punks, disco rollers, casual sex, and drug use--and bildungsroman of a young woman who grows from a na ve, sexually inexperienced art-school dropout into a self-aware, self-confident artist. Mimi Pond's chatty, slyly observant anecdotes create a compelling portrait of a distinct moment in time. Over Easy is an immediate, limber, and precise semi-memoir narrated with an eye for the humor in every situation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDrawn & Quarterly
    Release dateAug 28, 2020
    ISBN9781770464407
    Unavailable
    Over Easy

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    Reviews for Over Easy

    4/5

    81 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Mimi Pond is one of the best cartoonists working today - but there's never been enough of her! Finally, a roman a clef tribute to her college life in Oakland in the period when hippies were waning and punks were on the rise. In 4 spectacular chapters, Margaret leaves home to attend art school in Oakland, and, more importantly, starts working at the Imperial Café, a hangout for everyone interesting in Oakland. Madge (her diner name) has to pay her extremely high dues as a dishwasher and only moves up to server when another of the girl gang departs. Most memorable is Lazlo Merengue, the boss. For Lazlo to hire you, you need to tell him a great joke. The captions and drawings evoke a time in all of our lives when we were trying on and discarding new costumes and ideas. As the song says, we were "a million different people from one day to the next", and all of Madge's lives, and those of her co-workers and customers, are lyrically drawn and quoted and remembered. The most joyous part is a successful Poetry Night in which all comers are revealed to be bards in their own write.If I had enough money, I'd buy the world Over Easy.
    • 3/5
      The basics: Over Easy is a partially fictionalized graphic memoir of Mimi Pond's experience as an art student and diner waitress in Berkeley, California in the 1970's.My thoughts: I spent years working in restaurants. I never worked in a diner, but the wine bar in Atlanta where Mr. Nomadreader and I met, had an eight-hour brunch every Saturday and Sunday. Given my history (and Mr. Nomadreader's continued work) in the service industry, I'm drawn to books about the restaurant business. When I read Mimi Pond wrote a comic for Seventeen in the 1990's, I immediately remembered her, and I also knew she wrote for The Simpsons. Over Easy may be a debut graphic memoir, but she's an accomplished and experienced artist and author.Pond captures the essence of 1970's Berkeley well. I was eager to explore that world, and the level of detail helped me immerse myself in it quickly. She also captures the naivete of her former self well. As is still the case, restaurants are filled with sex, drinking and drugs, and Mimi was often surprised to see how her co-workers lived and partied.What was less successful for me in terms of storytelling was the lack of insight. It's as though Pond shared her journals from the moment without the perspective of life lived since then. In that sense, it's too ordinary of a coming of age story. Much will be familiar to anyone who spent time working in a restaurant today. While this type of coming of age story can be quite successful, I was struck by how ordinary her experience was. Clearly it was powerful enough for her to tell this story (and tell it well), but as I read, I kept waiting for the 'so what?' moment. What makes this graphic memoir/novel special? Given Pond's professional success, there's an argument there, but she doesn't address her life now at all, even in passing. Pond is what's most interesting here, but too much of the story hinges on the cast of characters that fascinated, delighted and confounded her younger self. Unfortunately, they didn't have the same impact on this reader.The verdict: I had high expectations for Over Easy, and overall I was underwhelmed. Pond immersed me in the time and place, but I wanted more insight and reflection into her experience. I wanted more insight into what makes this story special. I most enjoyed her life outside of the restaurant, but the story focused mostly on the cast of characters within the restaurant. Ultimately, Over Easy is a competent coming of age graphic memoir, but I wanted more.
    • 3/5
      "Over Easy" is a comic book account of Pond's first few years working at an alternative diner in Oakland (California) in the 70s. It also chronicles Pond's entrance into adult life and paints a great portrait of post-hippie California.The first half of the book deals with Pond's personal journey and introduction to adult life and the Imperial Cafe diner; this was candidly written and charmingly illustrated. Unfortunately, the second half of the book dwells on her employment there, with relatively little momentum in her personal journey, and we don't find out why or how she ended up leaving eventually.
    • 3/5
      Fun time capsule through the lens of someone looking to feel welcome and successful.
    • 4/5
      Great read for anyone who's worked food service in their lifetime.
    • 4/5
      I started reading this book and found my eyes glued to it and my hands compelled to turn page after page as I smiled, snorted with laughter, groaned internally with pained empathy, until I reached the last page and sadly put it down, wishing there was more. It's about a young woman who's not sure what direction she wants to go after leaving art college finding a home in The Imperial, a diner where life is like a soap opera but funnier, dirtier and a thousand times more interesting.
    • 2/5
      Eh, this one just wasn't for me. Not into the art style, the storytelling, or the drug use. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen and it didn't.
    • 5/5
      Well, I liked that more than I thought I would! I wondered if I would tire of the episodic nature, but it seamlessly flowed one story into another, with all the gloriously seedy 70s sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll you could ask for. Totally recommended if you like reading Anthony Bourdain, if a bit more sympathetic to wait staff.
    • 4/5
      Fantastic. A superb workplace graphic novel about an Oakland diner in the last 1970s. Picture John Cheever as a 20s something art student, female and illustrated. Worth every page and every slice of buttered toast. Best to read with breakfast.