Comic Memoir: I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN by Mannie Murphy. 2021. 978168396410052499.
Starts as a memoir of teen love and fascination with River Phoenix by a woman who grew up in the PNW and Portland. Turns into a story about Phoenix and director Gus van Sant. van Sant's upper middle class fascination with street kids and culture. The connection of street kids to white supremacy groups. The growth and popularity if white supremacist dirtbags. Influence and presence of nazi leader Tom Metzger. The connection to the infamous GERALDO episode of thrown chairs and new-nazi garbage humans.
A listing of true crime stories recalled or connected to the author and her youth in Portland. Attending a alternative high school with a bad reputation. A well-known neo-nazi garbage human who went to the high school and convicted of murder. van Sant's very sketchy behavior with teen street people.
Overarching theme of failing children and teens and "don't trust adults". Kids left adrift to early abuse of drugs and sex - River Phoenix the famed example. Uncritical following of leaders like Metzger and the both the Oregon Episcopal School mountain disaster with nine dead. 1978 airliner crash into a Portland suburb killing ten.
Artwork is black and white on a lined notebook. I don't know enough about art to know the type of painting. To me this is a black-and-white water color. The illustrations really do match the darker colors and themes I recall from van Sant's work. Where every day is cloudy and it feels like the sky is pressing everything down.
