Brian Hieggelke

The best storytellers are not those who weave words into epic tales of heroes and villains, nor those who break your heart with tragedies of romance gone wrong or families dysfunctional to the core. Those stories tell themselves. The best storytellers are those who can find narrative in the details of everyday life, who can look at the same thing you're staring at and somehow see the story.

Harvey Pekar is one of the great storytellers of our time. He edits a fairly normal existence as a now-retired file clerk in Cleveland into the intoxicating tales that populate his "American Splendor" comics. Most of his stories are fairly short, often vignettes that feature recurring characters in the fullest sense. Where most of us endeavor to minimize contact with the marginal and discomfortingly odd individuals who occupy the fringes of our lives, Pekar champions them.

Now in his sixties, and retired from the gushing source that his seemingly tedious job provided him, Pekar has been especially prolific of late. Perhaps encouraged by better offers in the wake of the success of the "American Splendor" movie, Pekar has released two hardcovers in less than a year. Not unlike a short-story writer flexing his novel muscles periodically, Pekar adapts to the longer form quite well. His "The Quitter" from last fall was an autobiographical "apology" for the journey that led to the finished product he's become. Turns out that young Harvey Pekar was a pathological quitter, unable to stick out any endeavor lest he be proven lacking. Like most of Pekar's earlier autobiographical stories, you can't help feel a mix of sadness and frustration at the challenging course he sets for himself. If only he'd been a hang-in-there kind of guy... he could have been a success! Of course, that's the happy ending to his story. He became the opposite of the quitter, the champion of the lost cause, clinging to his file-clerk job and quixotically self-publishing his comic book for years. If prosperity has largely evaded him, posterity should reward his persistence.

His new book, "Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story," tells the strange life story of one of Pekar's younger acquaintances. Malice is a bright social misfit, who constantly alienates himself from the others around him by unapologetically manifesting his sense of superiority. But Pekar finds something else in Malice: an obsessive curiosity about matters both large and small, like his persistent desire to make a documentary about an obscure cow-punk band long since dissolved called Rubber Rodeo. And Pekar senses the insecurity buried beneath the toxic personality; he extracts it through his story and somehow turns Malice into an engaging--and even sympathetic--character.

Reading "Ego & Hubris" in proximity to "The Quitter," it's apparent why Pekar was drawn to Malice's story. In many ways, it's an alternative take on his own life. Both are passionate, obsessive square pegs in the social round; both act out self-destructively as schoolboys and young men. Pekar's challenges stem from his lack of self-confidence; Malice's from his excess thereof. Michael Malice seems like the kind of guy you'd prefer not to spend too much time with, except through the sympathetic pen of Harvey Pekar.

Harvey Pekar makes his first Chicago appearance at The Other Book Festival (sponsored by Newcity) in more than a decade. The OBF takes place June 4 from 4pm-8pm at Cactus, 404 South Wells.

(2006-05-31)

Also by Brian Hieggelke

Life without Newspapers
I am a lifelong newspaper junkie. Growing up, my dad always read the newspaper, and when his dad was around, he read the newspaper. I understood implicitly that grownup men read newspapers
(2006-03-28)

Life without Newspapers
t's almost two weeks since I kicked the print newspaper habit and, truthfully, I'm not feeling any pain, or any more optimistic for the future of the daily newspaper...
(2006-02-26)

Designer Toothpaste?
It had to happen. That tube of Crest or Colgate just doesn't quite hold its aesthetic charm next to those pricey jars of Erno Laszlo eye cream or Fresh sugar shea butter. With the surge in upscale apothecaries and bath and beauty boutiques, we've noticed a proliferation of toothpastes that look as fresh next to your sink as they taste. Why do you think they call it a vanity, anyway?
(2006-02-21)

Life without Newspapers
I decided to go cold turkey for a month and give up print newspaper subscriptions altogether. To try and get most of my daily news fix from the web, and see what happened. My last day would be Sunday, February 12, the biggest paper of the week, and the one that I once cherished the most
(2006-02-14)

Requiem for a Dream
(2005-12-06)

Hot Dish
(2005-11-29)

Costume conundrums
(2005-11-01)

Fan fare for the Common Man
(2005-10-25)

Ticket-Miser
(2005-10-18)

Car Free
(2005-07-21)

Tip of the Week
(2005-05-10)

Tip of the Week
(2005-04-12)

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