The Heroic Girls Book Club pick for July is Hot Comb, by new author Ebony Flowers. Hot Comb was one of last year’s best surprises, with then-unknown Flowers turning in an instant classic with her very first graphic novel. The book did exceptionally well critically, ending up on numerous “best of” lists for 2019 (including our own.)
The HG Book Club meets on Facebook on the last Sunday of every month at 2 p.m. PST. Click below to RSVP.
Hot Comb – Heroic Girls Book Club Discussion (July 26, 2020)
AN AUSPICIOUS DEBUT EXAMINING THE CULTURE OF HAIR FROM THE RONA JAFFE FOUNDATION AWARD-WINNING CARTOONIST
Hot Comb offers a poignant glimpse into Black women’s lives and coming of age stories as seen across a crowded, ammonia-scented hair salon while ladies gossip and bond over the burn. The titular story “Hot Comb” is about a young girl’s first perm—a doomed ploy to look cool and to stop seeming “too white” in the all-black neighborhood her family has just moved to. In “Virgin Hair” taunts of “tender-headed” sting as much as the perm itself. It’s a scenario that repeats fifteen years later as an adult when, tired of the maintenance, Flowers shaves her head only to be hurled new put-downs. The story “My Lil Sister Lena” traces the stress resulting from being the only black player on a white softball team. Her hair is the team curio, an object to touched, a subject to be discussed and debated at the will of her teammates, leading Lena to develop an anxiety disorder of pulling her own hair out. Among the series of cultural touchpoints that make you both laugh and cry, Flowers recreates classic magazine ads idealizing women’s needs for hair relaxers and product. “Change your hair form to fit your life form” and “Kinks and Koils Forever” call customers from the page.
Realizations about race, class, and the imperfections of identity swirl through Flowers’ stories and ads, which are by turns sweet, insightful, and heartbreaking. Flowers began drawing comics while earning her PhD, and her early mastery of sequential storytelling is nothing short of sublime. Hot Comb is a propitious display of talent from a new cartoonist who has already made her mark.