Meditations on fatherhood from the author of Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City
With A User's Guide to Neglectful Parenting, the trademark dry humor that pervades Guy Delisle's landmark and praised graphic travelogues takes center stage. Quick, light vignettes play on the worries and cares any young parent might have, and offer wry solutions to the petty frustrations of being a dad who works from home.
Readers familiar with Delisle's stranger-in-a-strange-land technique for storytelling (employed in Jerusalem, Pyongyang, Burma, and Shenzhen) will recognize the titular parent in this book; Delisle's travelogues were simultaneously portraits of complex places and times, and portraits of a stay-at-home dad's ever-changing relationship with his children while his wife is out working for Doctors Without Borders. The relationship between young child and all-too-irony-aware parent is beautifully done here, and Delisle's loose flowing style has been set free, creating a wonderful sense of motion throughout. A User's Guide to Neglectful Parenting is an intimate, offbeat look at the joys of parenting.

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Helge Dascher has for 25 years translated texts with a dynamic relationship to images. A background in art history and literature has grounded her translation of over sixty graphic novels, many by artists who have broadened the medium's storytelling range. Her translations included acclaimed titles such as Julie Delporte's This Woman's Work (co-translated with Aleshia Jensen, Drawn and Quarterly, 2019), Sophie Bédard's Lonely Boys (co-translated with Robin Lang, Pow Pow Press, 2020) and Michel Rabagliati's "Paul" books (Drawn and Quarterly, Conundrum). She also translates exhibitions, digital stories, and films, most recently Theodor Ushev's The Physics of Sorrow (with Karen Houle, NFB, 2019). A Montrealer, she works from French and German to English.

Helge Dascher's profile page

A User's Guide to Neglectful Parenting is a funny and truthful book about being a parent." - Boing Boing

"You don't have to be a parent to enjoy Guy Delisle's whimsical graphic novel." - NOW Toronto

" A User's Guide. . . shares with [Delisle's] previous work a keen appreciation for the clash of cultures; this time, however, the cultures in question are those of adults and children, and the damage that ensues is played for a rueful laugh." - NPR
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