Spit and Passion

by Cristy C. Road

Overview

Spit and Passion is about the transformative moment when music crashes into a stifling adolescent bedroom and saves you—suddenly, you belong. In this graphic memoir, cult illustrator Cristy C. Road brings "to vivid life the experiences of a queer-identified Latina punk rocker" (Bitch).

At twelve years old, Cristy is trying to balance the values of a Cuban Catholic family with her newfound queer identity, and begins a chronic obsession with the punk band Green Day. In this stunning memoir, Road renders the clash between her rich inner world of fantasy and the numbing suburban conformity she is surrounded by. She finds solace in the closet—where she lets her deep excitement about punk rock foment and, in that angst and euphoria, finds a path to self-acceptance.

Cristy C. Road has reached cult status for work that captures the beauty of the imperfect. Her career began with Greenzine, a punk rock zine, which she made for ten years. She has since published Indestructible, an illustrated novel about high school; Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick, a postcard book; and Bad Habits, a love story about self-destruction and healing. She has also illustrated countless album covers, book jackets, and political organization propaganda. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558618077
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	10/23/2012
Series:	Blindspot Graphics
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	535,584
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Cristy C. Road is a Cuban-American artist, writer and musician who’s
been supplying creativity for punk rock, publishing, & social justice
movements since she was a teenager in Miami, circa1997. Road self-published
Green’zine for ten years, and has since released three illustrated novels which
tackle gender, sexuality, mental health and cultural identity; truthfully spoken
with curse words and bathroom humor: “Indestructible” (2005), “Bad
Habits” (2008), “Spit and Passion” (2013), and her most recent project, The
Next World Tarot, a traditionally illustrated Tarot deck depicting resilience and
revolution. C.Road’s illustrations has been featured in New York Magazine, The
Advocate, The New York Times, Maximumrocknroll, Razorcake, Bitch Magazine,
Bust Magazine, and countless other publications; as well as on shirts, record
album covers, concert and political advocacy posters worldwide.
As a musician, Road is a songwriter and guitarist. She fronted the pop-punk
group The Homewreckers for eight years, and currently fronts her new project,
Choked Up.
Road has been touring nationally and internationally on her own, with her
punk rock bands, and with Sister Spit: The Next Generation since 2001.
Cultivating a performance trajectory with a consistent show of defiance, she
performs at bookstores, record stores, basements, bars, college campuses, and
beyond.
She is a Gemini and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Editorial Reviews

Veteran punk writer and illustrator Road weaves text and art together in a charming and angst-ridden coming-of-age story. Cuban-American and raised in a traditional Catholic family, the preteen Road has a number of identity issues: she does not fit into her cultural mold, she finds salvation in punk rock, and she has a conflicted gender identity. Embracing her tomboy nature, Road begins to come to terms with herself as a gay woman, building a closet for her secret that becomes her refuge. Road’s identification with her teenage self feels genuine, and her recollections of pop culture (both embraced and rejected) of the 1990s will strike nostalgic chords in readers of that generation. Road balances long sections of prose with pages dominated by art; her pencil and marker style, with images populated by strange and imperfect-looking characters, is well suited to her story, even if the ending doesn’t entirely solve her identity issues. Grotesque images of dangling eyeballs and gushing brains reflect the alternative scene the young Road has discovered. Readers who enjoyed Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home will probably empathize with Road’s story of sexual exploration and punk rock. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Road, an artist and writer, borrowed her nom de plum from a Green Day song title, which gives you some idea of the punky, exuberant spirit behind her graphic memoir about growing up gay in a very Catholic Cuban family from Miami.” —Entertainment Weekly

"Veteran punk writer and illustrator Road weaves text and art together in a charming and angst-ridden coming-of-age story. . . .Readers who enjoyed Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home will probably empathize with Road’s story of sexual exploration and punk rock." —Publishers Weekly

"Road's writing has long brought to vivid life the experiences of a queer-identified Latina punk rocker." —Bitch magazine

"True to Road's punk nature, she fills the page with raw words and drawings that illustrate the wide range of her emotions—from rage to despair." —Daily News (New York)

“Spit and Passion is a queer, punk Cuban American’s coming-of-age memoir that’s as brilliant as it is brave. Not to be missed.” —Junot Díaz, author of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"I'm a big Cristy C. Roads fan. Spit and Passion is a graphic delight, and the depiction of awkward youth is spot-on, weird, and familiar. —Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

"Cristy C. Road is a bad ass. She has a list of published work that leaves me awed and inspired." —Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day

"Cristy C. Road is the Jack Kerouac of the young queer generation. She's as brilliant a writer as she is an illustrator."—Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger

From the Publisher

At age ten, Cristina is drawn to daring songs and to women dancing. Recognizing her emerging gay self, she says she "tried to pretend everyone on earth was gay," but kept it to herself within her warm Cuban Catholic family. Over the next two years, she develops a rich inner life, drawing support from the punk-rock music of Green Day and gay-positive celebrities such as Roseanne Barr and Ellen DeGeneres. She feels safe in her closet for the time being, as "sometimes the doorways felt like pillars, the clothing on the racks like tropical foliage, and the ground like the ocean." The book is more prose-illustration hybrid than comics, since Road's long and fascinating monologues of intellectual post-processing about sexual identity intercut the art. VERDICT The queer Latina experience is underdocumented in general and especially in comics. Freelance illustrator Road excels with portraiture of the transgressive fringe. Her quirky, evocative drawings, black and white with tan wash, seem almost like brain-captures depicting memories of people and feelings. Good for teen collections where gay-identity material is acceptable for this age group. Road includes F-bombs and mention of masturbation but nothing explicit.—M.C.

Library Journal