The Freddie Stories

by Lynda Barry

Here is the first new collection of Lynda Barry's nationally syndicated cartoon strip in more than five years. Lynda Barry, creator of the 'My Life' and 'Ernie Pook's Comeek' comic strips, is syndicated in over 40 alternative weekly newspapers across the country. The Freddie Stories—featuring sisters Marlys and Maybonne, and their spunky little brother Freddie--continues Lynda Barry's brilliant, raw, and completely original exploration of youth, coming of age, friendship, attitude, and being in the world.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comix, Art, Humor

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Lynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author, perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek.

Reviews

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lynda Barry's artwork looks rather crude at first glance, so I never actually read one of her books despite all the praise they have received. What a mistake! As it turns out, every bleak line and every blunt sentence in The Freddie Stories flawlessly evokes the tormented perspective of its protagonist and narrator, Freddie.

Having been neglected and abused for years by almost all the people around him, Freddie finally cracks when he reaches adolescence. Barry's portrayal of Freddie's gradual descent into madness is remarkably insightful and unflinching. It is ultimately her decision to tell the story from Freddy's own increasingly deranged perspective, though, that makes this book an absolute must-read for anybody interested in alternative comics, as it creates a uniquely disturbing and disorienting reading experience!

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barry's depiction of childhood is a terrifying world. I forget that between readings. I recall the quirky beauty of her illustrations, her sly humor, and her obvious affection for her characters. But, make no mistake, Freddie lives in a nightmare world. Among his ordeals: framed for a crime by an adolescent psychopath, constantly being bullied, taunted with homophobic slurs, shamed by a terrible mother, wrongly assigned to special education. It's no wonder that creative, sensitive Freddie kinda cracks. And he does. This edition of the stories has a section of previously uncollected stories, and they alone are worth the price of admission. About half a dozen of those are these sweet, whimsical, weird book reports by Freddie on the natural world. Delightful.

[Parvoneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

know that this is a very triggering book for childhood traumas. it is hard and good but very very hard, sometimes. actually pretty terrifying, sometimes. in the way that fantastical, terrifying things are hard because real, terrifying things are hard.

freddie and the fly, freddie and so many hurts and hard things, freddie's big heart and groovy sense of humor, how i love freddie, how scary to live in freddie's world, how scary that freddie's hard world is our mean world. i love you freddie i love you lynda.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of the author, and this graphic novel does not disappoint. This coming of age story is told from Freddie's point of view, via a collections of comic strips - each double page moves the story forward. While many complain about her sketchy illustration style, they work really well for this dark, and so very sad story. The author's unflinching look at growing up, friendship, bullying, and child abuse is raw and often gut wrenching. To say more would be spoilery. A word of caution, do not read this if you are already sad, or looking for a pick me up read.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily Lynda Barry's bleakest book of comics. Though the dark material is leavened by her rhythmic, often incantatory oral voice, it will be rough going for a lot of readers. But the rewards are very much there, it's a strong work.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lynda Barry is the supreme funky comic-art goddess.
Of all time.

[Alex V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know there are those that claim to not like Lynda Barry, but I rope them in with the people that claim to not like peanut butter, in that I hear what they are saying but I don't really believe them.

This brief book is tragic and hilarious, fantastic and all too real. It entails the level of transcendence that any writer wishes they had access to. It's a tangle of words and image, as dense as a real vine hidden in the weeds of real life. You feel wrapped up in those thorny nether-vines with ethereal Freddie, watching poor mortal Freddie navigate the horror of existence with defiant denial. It is the best 45-minute book you will ever read and re-read.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of the emotional unraveling of a young boy raised fatherless by a hostile mother, two hapless sisters, and an extended family of harried and uncaring cousins and aunts. "The Freddie Stories" is powerful and sad, dealing with a child's mistakes, difficulties in building and maintaining friendships, and unduly harsh punishments for errors of judgment--a sense of judgment that's never been shaped by love and guidance.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, how I wish I had loved this. I really enjoy the authors work, but this one just wasn't working for me. Lots of outdated language (mostly f-word, but also r-word), even though it was mostly used from teasing / bullying I still was surprized and the frequency. I know that really fair given it's a collection and probably more likely to have been read over time than all at once. On to more recent works & hoping to get back to the ones I really enjoy.

[Neven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lynda Barry’s writing has a raw, manic, step-on-it-and-fly-off-the-cliff psychedelia to it that really works for me, in a very basic sense: it grabs me, engages all my senses at once, shocks me into looking and being unable to look away. She also captures the un-innocent aspects of childhood well; her children aren’t smaller adults or sillier adults, but uniquely cruel and vulnerable creatures.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing I have read by Lynda Barry that I have not loved. Her writing is always full of the unexpected, so I expect that with each book. The Freddie Stories, however, provided an unexpected level of the unexpected - even for Lynda Barry. The stories are dark, haunting, honest, tragic, and (in ways hard to describe) triumphant all at once. As a person who has worked many years in the social services system, I appreciate the rich perspective of the characters who would fall into the category of "troubled kids" (as if there were any other kind). As a former kid, I appreciate the raw and honest voice of Freddie. As a mom, I appreciate the slant of the stories that reminds us to pay attention to what is going on with kids, and to take them seriously. I expected to love this book, and it surpassed my expectations.

[D'Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought and read the original edition of The Freddie Stories in 1999. This new edition, published by Drawn & Quarterly, features an afterward by Barry and comics that weren't included in the original edition. These "lost" comics add an entirely new dimension to the narrative, making The Freddie Stories a richer, more complex work. I was really happy to see that some of the comics I cut out of the newspaper back in the early 90s and still have in a little envelope have found a happy more permanent home here.

[scarlettraces · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lynda Barry would be my discovery of last year (Posy Simmonds was my rediscovery) and i think i liked this one the most of all the ones i could get my hands on. probably because there is more of an obvious narrative to this collection than to the greatest!of!marlys - and some of the strips made my hair stand on end. what i really want is the absolutely everything lynda barry has ever done in one collection book.

[J. Bryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

More a collection of two-page, four-panels strips, not a graphic novel, although over all it does tell a mostly-cohesive story.

Freddie's life sucks in a heart-wrenching way -- way more emotional depth to this book than you'd expect, either from a graphic novel generally, or from the child-like drawings Lynda Barry uses. Parts are chilling, other parts hilarious ... it's just like life in that way.

Highly recommended for its offkilterness.

[Harriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Places I have cried whilst reading this comic book: 1) in the bath, 2) at the Iron Rail bookstore and library (I was working there that day. It was not dignified.)

[Ian Roditi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh...

[Bookfairy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unforunately, I didn't get a lot out of this slice of life comic. The old, 'zine-style art was interesting, but sloppy, and I just didn't enjoy it overall, but maybe I'm the wrong audience.

[Desmond Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heartbreaking, hilarious book from the great Lynda Barry. A memoir that will have you laughing and crying, sometimes at the same time. Her McArthur award and love for The Family Circus will make even more sense after reading this.

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor Freddie.
I love most of what I've read of Barry but I didn't really connect with this one. Maybe too many F words for me.

[Kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give this five stars, but it's so very dark and disturbing I'm still sorting out my feelings about it. I needed a little more hope at the end, I think. When Barry is upsetting, she's REALLY upsetting, and in such an icepick-through-the-ribs way, where you are so empathetic to her narrators their pain sears into your brain. I can't stop thinking about it. It is one powerful bit o work, not unlike "Cruddy" if the protagonist had suffered a chain of mental breakdowns instead of gone on a treasure hunt.

Because it is stuck in my head, I'm going to write down the entire plot now, so this is going to turn into a spoiler.


SPOILER: A "strange" year in the life of Marlys and Maybonne's effeminate little brother, Freddie. While spending the summer at his aunt's house, Freddie (who is left out of children's games and taunted, called a fag) spies on his cousin Arnold and Arnold's sociopathic friend Jim-Jimmy-Jim. When Freddie warns a neighborhood boy who is secretly dating Jimmy's sister that Jimmy is planning to burn his house down that night, Jimmy figures it out and manages both to burn down another house, killing the old lady inside, and, after pummeling Freddie, pin the crime on him and Arnold as well. Freddie and Jimmy go to juvie, where Jimmy and Freddie's dreams about the old lady he believes he killed menace him until Jimmy's diaries are discovered and Freddie is proved innocent. Nevertheless, when his mom picks him up, Freddie is treated like a criminal. At this point, Freddie begins to hallucinate that he can see everyone's skulls, which are always burning. He does meet a young woman whose baby doesn't have a skull head, and he grows attached, but the woman uses him as a sitter and abandons Freddie with the baby until very late, and then comes home vomiting and begs him to stay. For once Freddie doesn't get in trouble with his alcoholic mom for staying out late, because she thinks he's just gotten up early when he comes home.

Freddie tells Marlys and Maybonne about the burning skulls and they tell him not to tell their mom. Finally Freddie has a dream that indicated that Marlys' concern for him has saved him from going fully crazy, and he stops seeing the skulls.

In school, Freddie acquires a friend who tells him he is 37 and in the CIA. When Freddie denies their friendship in front of schoolmates, the kid starts torturing Freddie (sexually? this is hinted at but never spelled out) in his basement until one day the kid isn't at school and it turns out he died by choking on a peanut. Freddie believes this death, too, is his fault, for he thinks he has seen a night creature that takes children in its sack, and implored it to take the kid instead of Freddie. Freddie starts seeing this being everywhere, much as with the burning skulls. The creature is joined by another mysterious figure, a star-eyed, smiling black figure that wears a top hat and whose presence makes Freddie think in a jangling, jive-like manner. Freddie's night terrors get him sent to the basement, where he develops a crazy fever. When Maybonne is put in charge of him during a school day, she invites a friend over and the two girls share a hallucenogenic pill that gives them a bad trip. Marlys comes home to this and calls an ambulance, which ends up taking Freddie to the hospital, as his fever has gotten horrific. After it breaks, Freddie sees himself as a separate, new Freddie that is essentially a robot. Marlys is again heroized by being the only person to notice this change. New Freddie is made to go to Special Ed, where he doesn't think he belongs at first. Eventually he befriends a "spaz-eyed" girl named Gi-Gi in Special Ed. He is still trying to figure out the jive-taking character, and Marlys, either in real life or in a dream, remembers that it was a doll a gypsy gave him as a child. He draws a picture of the doll and tells Gi-Gi its crazy long name (something along the lines of "saba-daba-mama-danga-scuba-daba-sister-brother-nuba-doctor-etc, etc.), which triggers an epileptic episode in Gi-Gi that scares Freddie. Luckily, Gi-Gi doesn't blame him, and loves the doll drawing. Meanwhile, Freddie's mom burns the doll, and Freddie realizes that the night stalker creature he used to see looks a lot like a wad of his mom's hair in her ashtray with cigarette butts in it, and smells like burning hair. Freddie awakens to life, proclaiming himself El Fagtastico and finally asserting himself and a manic kind of joy. The book seems almost safe at this point, but then Freddie and Gi-Gi have a falling-out and she moves away before they can mend. The book ends without much certainty of a better future for poor Freddie.

The various hallucinations reminded me of the Doughboys in Johhny the Homicidal Maniac, and Marlys's remembering the doll reminded me of Gray Crumpled Paper in the memoir I read by twins, one of whom developed schitzophrenia. I don't think my plot summary really expresses the uggy feelings this graphic novel holds.

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book needs a trigger warning.
“The Freddie Stories” by Lynda Barry is a collection of stories following nine-year old fourth grader Freddie Mullen. From the beginning, sympathy for Freddie is inevitable. His mom seems very strict, he gets teased at school, and his naïve, docile nature poses Freddie as the ultimate underdog. As the story progresses, however, sympathy turns to all out disturbance and disgust as Freddie’s story and mental health spiral more and more out of control.
The poor kid is accused of arson and sent to juvie because he tried to save a boy from getting his own home burned down. His schoolyard bully Glenn, who does questionable things to him in a basement, chokes on a peanut and dies.This causes Freddie to sing “found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now.” He is haunted by monsters and sent to sleep in the basement so that his mother won’t hear him scream, which apparently will make him “become a man.” He gets a horrible fever, is ignored by his high sister and has to be revived in a hospital. He has an out-of-body experience where “Not Freddie” goes about life normally as he helplessly watches from above. Things never seem to improve for Freddie, and the horrors of his life just seem to get worse.
I could not stop reading, however. Even though Freddie’s life is awful and no one seems to understand that he is experiencing severe mental health and special needs issues, the demented story just kept drawing me back in. Like any reader, I wanted to know if Freddie was going to be okay. Barry does not give that sort of resolution though and the collection just ends unsatisfactorily.
The horrors of Freddie’s life seem to be less shocking due to that fact that they are being told from the perspective of a nine-year old boy, who has no real understanding of the world and his life. As Douglas Wolk of The Washington Post explains, “what keeps ‘The Freddie Stories’ from being unbearably grim is Freddie’s irrepressible voice, a cartwheeling, goofy burble that delights in its own verve even in his darkest moments.” Freddie has no idea that what he is going through is not normal nor does he have any idea how terrible it all is. That is this collection’s saving grace. The way Barry writes Freddie’s narrative, he is never too sad or too scared or too hopeless. He is optimistic to the end. This optimism gave me the ability to keep reading because the story always stopped before becoming way too dark.
One of my favorite aspects of the book was Barry’s Afterword. In it, she explains that “I wrote the stories, I drew the pictures but the world they bring about isn’t mine. These things don’t belong to anyone. And that’s a relief.” She goes to explain that because of the form of the comic, everything that happens to Freddie will always be happening in the present. It isn’t about what happened to Freddie but what’s happening to Freddy, which is probably why this book feels so disturbing. You want to help him, stop all of these awful things from happening to him. It is a relief to finish the book and be given definite knowledge that Freddie is not real, not based off a real person. It would be unbearable if he was.
The artwork in the story is drawn in black pen. Certain scenes, depicting people mostly, seem more realistic than other scenes. Other panels are drawn how Freddie would draw them. “The Old Buddy” is the monster that haunts Freddie and he is a blob of ink with a face. This demonstrates the idea that this story is told from the view of a child. One that does not know what it is he is afraid of, just that it’s a scary monster. Complex notions like arson and death are drawn simplistically, just as a child would draw them. This parallels Freddie’s understanding and explanation of all that he goes through. He isn’t completely sure of what he is experiencing, so we get only what he can give us. Usually, these descriptions give just enough before they become entirely horrific. This method of telling the story, not detailing out murder and arson is full color, lessons the blow of Freddie’s life.
Lastly, some of the language used in this could be considered offensive by many people. I had to remind myself multiple times that this was written before the revolution of politically correct speech. It was still jarring. The casual way that people call Freddie and Freddie calls himself certain slurs makes the stories seem even worse, a feat that I would not have though possible.
I would recommend “The Freddie Stories,” because it truly is an enthralling and well-written story. I would, however, place a trigger warning on it because it definitely got way more intense than I was ever expecting.

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sort of confused at why this book is so widely well-received. I initially found it charming but then just a bit too wayward and silly.

Clearly the artwork isn't the focus here, as it is hard to defend as effective or appealing, and though Barry keeps to a strict '4 equally spaced and sized panels per page regimen' she crops the image size to fit the height of the panel remaining after oversized all-caps text has been put in. Thank goodness for the added readability of sans-serif capitals. But if we just had the text, would it be readworthy?

Maybe. Barry can clearly write cool plots, but this was hampered by the viewpoint she chose. It's irriating that the foreword poses a concrete 'good/bad' end for Freddy but the book's ending gives less closure than anything I have read in recent memory. 'Craziness' is interesting to read about when tackled from the more rational perspective of the individual, but Freddy seems to lack any sort of wanting for us to make his later quite literal babbling make sense to anyone, including his mother. Does he age in any of this, as if anything he seems to be getting less coherent, intelligent or reflective as he gets older?

I guess I'm disinterested because I'm not the right audience for this. I used to be more forgiving. It comes down to whether you would appreciate the artwork of a child with psychiatric conditions by virtue that it was completed through and with those conditions, or whether you'd just compare it to those without and find it not as appealling. Right now I'm just looking for what has an appealling art style or linear narrative structure, so this was only just about worth reading for me.

[Lily Sizemore · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is noteworthy for getting new ideas on what do when to impress people, do something when you get bored or anything you could possibly want to do, because it could help you when you need tips on how to do stupid little things that might actually help in your life or situation. But it is not a good read.
The cover is so detailed and intriguing that I thought this was going to be a booked packed of interesting stories. After reading pages and pages I kept losing interest faster and faster. This book might be fun for a fifth grader to read about a twelve year-old stories about how fun summer is or how to impress your mother, but this was not an intriguing book.
“in summer I love all the insects.” Page 6. That quote just makes you want to lose interest in all reading this if you don’t like bugs or things in that category. “You can buy the right candy. A lot of dreams.” Page 56. That quote makes you feel like you are reading a bed time story that talks about a twelve year-old eating the right candy to get to a good dream.
I do not recommend this book to anyone over the age of twelve because it’s just like reading twelve year-old biography over a boy’s life that I have no interest in.

[Roadeer Squirrelberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Freddie stories In my point of view is a great example of a good storytelling, The story is written in the first person and remains in character until the end. it has a very good sense of humor, however, the writer managed to make it a very melancholic sad kind of humor, which gives you mixed emotions. the story is sad, and during reading it I kept on thinking of the method of operational character, Freddie never manages to reach his main goal 'i'm always doing good but the world around me is screwing me up with evil'. the story is also open to readers a real sad horrible world that exists that might be very far away from them which is described in kid's words, during the story you develop a big empathy for the characters and the some around him. the story is written in a very clever way with many philosophical questions, poetic lyrics and smart sense of humor. even though the book is loaded with words, it won't be as good without the naive drawings that complete it.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whereas the collection The Greatest of Marlys captures the spazzy wonder of childhood with entirely appropriate undertones of sadness and exclusion, The Freddie stories are much, much darker, as the sensitive Freddie lives through some true horrors growing up and one of the only occasional bright spots in his life is his sister Marlys. Freddie's demons are portrayed as often quite real and literal monsters and ghosts, and as he tries to escape into dreams of ancient creatures, Antarctica, and his new friend Spaz-Eyed Gigi, the real world intrudes on him in often depressing ways again and again. Nobody really nails the voice of the wounded child like Lynda Barry, and she does it perfectly in a much bleaker way here.

[Joanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was kind of brutal. It's the story of Freddie, a misfit who is sent to live at his aunt's house for the summer. While he's there another boy sets fire to a house, killing a woman. Freddie gets part of the blame and winds up in juvie which is bad enough but then the poor kid basically has a breakdown and starts seeing flaming skulls in place of everyone's heads. His mother is wretched and abusive and no help whatsoever then the kid starts having crazy dreams. As much as I appreciate the talent and creativity that went into creating this graphic novel it was a lot heavier than I was anticipating.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow... I didn't read the back of the book, which advised those who don't like unpleasant situations to not read the book, until the end. I still would have read it, but I would have known to prepare myself. There is always this sort of bittersweet element to Lynda Barry's stories- memories of childhood emphasize the funny and the awesome, but there is always something else mentioned that throws all of those memories off- whether it be bullies, cruel mothers, or worse. Freddie had a rough time, let's just say that. The stories are well-told, and I love Marlys all the more, but... poor Freddie.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's a good thing this one is actually called "freddie stories" so i can differentiate it from every other marlys-themed collection. this one focuses on marlys's brother, freddie, who is obsessed with bugs & maybe a little emotionally disturbed due to taunting from neighborhood bullies. the comics here are mostly about freddie, or told from his perspective, about bugs & bullies & his weird way of seeing the world. i was intrigued because i have never been a young boy & i guess missed out on the demonic power wielded by neighborhood bullies, as bullies tend to not bother girls all that much.

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never not loving everything Lynda Barry writes. Always oddball and true. Some brutal stuff happens in this one, but the relationship between Freddie and his sister Marlys is just so deeply #1 (as Fred Milton, Beat Poodle would say).

If you haven't read any of Barry's regular comic strips featuring this family (siblings Freddie, Marlys, and Maybonne, and their cousins Arna and Arnold), you might want to start with "The Greatest of Marlys."