Dancing at the Pity Party Is a Real and Expressive Look at a Mother’s Death

Dial Books/Penguin Random House

Death, fictional or true, isn’t an uncommon event in stories told through books and movies, but Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder is unique in how it treats the subject. Where most media uses death as a plot point to establish danger or make everyone feel sad (and no other emotions but sad), Feder explores the strange, conflicting emotions that surround a parent’s death and how it still affects her years later.

In this graphic novel, Feder recounts her experiences surrounding her mother’s illness and death when Feder was 19. The summer after Feder’s first year of college, her mother was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer; she died less than a year later, while Feder was home during spring break. The author and illustrator dives deep into the weird and surreal feelings that surround illness and death—how grief isn’t linear but rather, as she writes, “grief is MESSY. Despite what media cliches have led us to believe, it doesn’t follow any real rules. It’s like a traveling carnival ride: NOISY and DARK and CONFUSING and SMELLY, and WEIRD.”

Dancing at the Pity Party takes us along for every step of the process, including the parts that are often glossed over in less nuanced stories. We see her mother’s initial cancer treatments and then experience the shock that Feder felt at the change she saw in her between her winter and spring breaks. We are taken into the hospital room for her mother’s last few days, a sequence that may ring uncomfortably true to life for people who have gone through similar things with their own family members. Afterward, we sit shiva with Feder and her family and watch as she, her father, and her sisters try to find the best possible version of their new normal.

The tone of the book is helped along by the illustrations. While many graphic novels focus on sweeping landscapes and elaborate visual scenes, Feder’s simple and expressive style helps build the intimate and honest tone of the book, lending to the feeling that you’ve been given permission to read someone’s journal. It’s one thing to say that it feels like you’re falling into an abyss after receiving bad news, but a drawing that depicts the inner feeling communicates so much more about the experience.

Dial Books/ Penguin Publishing Group

In all, it makes for a cathartic, grab-a-box of tissues type of read. (That’s not just a figure of speech—I devoured the book in one sitting and had to go run for tissues midway through.) As it is an honest book, Dancing at the Pity Party doesn’t pretend that there will be a fully happy ending and that life will return to the way that it was before. It makes clear that there will be scars and that they will pop out at unexpected times.

Ultimately, it is a book of subdued optimism. It recognizes that after someone experiences bad things, such as the death of their mother, the world changes forever. However, while the change may be for the worse, it doesn’t ultimately eclipse all happiness forever.

And sometimes, that’s really the best optimism you can hope for.

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir is appropriate for young adult audiences and up and available now from Dial Books.

Dial Books/Penguin Publishing Group

Note: Quote is taken from an uncorrected proof.