Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Simon & Schuster (2000), Edition: Illustrated, 320 pages
Description
A psycho-killer's daughter narrates her gory youth. Disguised as a boy she accompanies her father on his murderous jobs, during which she pretends to be a mute so as not to give away her voice. One of the more memorable tasks is disposing of dead mobsters in a slaughterhouse.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ghostwire
Cruddy is dark. Very dark. Kidnapping, child abuse, mass murder, tripped out teenagers, desperation, violent adults - only Lynda Barry could incorporate such dire circumstances and keep the narrative afloat with morbid humor, wry observations, and a wise and world-weary (to say the least)
I finished this book feeling raw and stunned and aching for Roberta, wishing there was more of her story to tell.
Harrowing, brutal, chaotic, darkly funny, heartbreaking, brilliant, and most of all, unforgettable.
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protagonist. Never sentimental, populated with characters strange and cruel, Cruddy is so compelling it had me anxious to leave work, just so I could curl up and devour the rest of the book.I finished this book feeling raw and stunned and aching for Roberta, wishing there was more of her story to tell.
Harrowing, brutal, chaotic, darkly funny, heartbreaking, brilliant, and most of all, unforgettable.
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LibraryThing member ashleybessbrown
One of my favorite books ever! It is pure magic & it changed my life. A fabulously messed-up world in which everything is colored by this weird seventies burnout swamprock vibe. Hyperugly Roberta (who at times seems a deaf-mute but it's all a ruse) allows herself to be swept along by her father on
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a tour of a surreal backwoods populated by Beserkley hillbillies, hardass Grandmammies and the type of pasty-skinned thirty-year-old men who could normally be found (in our world) in their momma's basements but in this case bestow megalomaniacal titles upon themselves and carry out their hermitage in underground caves. I marvel at Barry's creations. Please read this. Show Less
LibraryThing member carmilla222
Wonderful. I love the voice of the narrator and the great teen angst-iness of it all.
LibraryThing member allison.sivak
Cruddy
I picked this up expecting it to be like much of what I have read of Lynda Barry: heartbreaking, sweet, and immersed in adolescent pain. What I got was a terrifying novel that has elements of all these, but these elements are immersed in the horror-cum-fairy-tale that drives the book.
Roberta
The girls meet a hippie-drifter named Turtle, who has an immediate connection to Roberta, and spurs her to tell her horror story. Three years ago, her father left her mother after his butcher shop fails, in pursuit of his father's inheritance. He dressed Roberta as a boy and renamed her Clyde, and they set off on what becomes a murder spree. While the father uses Roberta as a pawn in his killings, he also reminds her constantly that he is likely to kill her at any point with his case full of butcher's knives. What follows is surreal in its events, but reads as both dangerous and true. Fantastic.
I picked this up expecting it to be like much of what I have read of Lynda Barry: heartbreaking, sweet, and immersed in adolescent pain. What I got was a terrifying novel that has elements of all these, but these elements are immersed in the horror-cum-fairy-tale that drives the book.
Roberta
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Rohbeson is a 15 year old who lives with her mother and sister in a cruddy house, on a cruddy street, in the cruddy part of town, in the cruddiest town in America. The girls' mother leaves them for long periods of time to find a wealthy husband. Julia, the youngest, spends much of her time watching TV. Roberta wanders around the neighbourhood, looking for action. She finds it in Vicky Talluso, a wannabe hippie with a bag full of drugs. The girls meet a hippie-drifter named Turtle, who has an immediate connection to Roberta, and spurs her to tell her horror story. Three years ago, her father left her mother after his butcher shop fails, in pursuit of his father's inheritance. He dressed Roberta as a boy and renamed her Clyde, and they set off on what becomes a murder spree. While the father uses Roberta as a pawn in his killings, he also reminds her constantly that he is likely to kill her at any point with his case full of butcher's knives. What follows is surreal in its events, but reads as both dangerous and true. Fantastic.
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LibraryThing member readingsarah
I'm evidently the only person who really doesn't like her work. I don't mind depressing books, but this one made me hate the world when I'm in a completely optimistic mindset and that wasn't good for me at all.
LibraryThing member YAlit
This tragicomedy is many things: bizarre, disturbing, unique, funny, and intriguing. Any fan of Barry's comics will recognize the artistic style in the illustrations, but be aware that it is much darker than most of Barry's work.
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
Barry, Lynda. Cruddy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
From the very first pages you want to know what this Cruddy book is all about. First, you are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson via her bizarre suicide note. Then, hoping to shed some light on the situation, you read chapter one
Cruddy is told from the perspective of Roberta Rohbeson at two different times in her life; as an eleven year old troubled little girl and as a sixteen year old angry teenager. Her story is tough and tragic and tinged with terrible humor. As an eleven year old she is thrust into the raging, alcohol-blurred world of her father who refuses to see her as his daughter. Instead, Roberta is not only his son, called Clyde, but his accomplice. When he discovers her in the backseat of his getaway car he takes her on a murderous journey across the desert fueled by hatred for his suicide-dead father who left him nothing.
As a sixteen year old Roberta is strung out on drugs and driven by abandonment. She befriends a group of outcast suicidal drug dealers who do nothing but fuel her craziness.
This was a book I found myself wondering about long after I put it down. Was Roberta modeled after anyone Lynda knew? What was the acceptable age range for this book? Would parents cringe if they knew their kid was reading this under the covers late at night?
From the very first pages you want to know what this Cruddy book is all about. First, you are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson via her bizarre suicide note. Then, hoping to shed some light on the situation, you read chapter one
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which is only seven sentences long which says nothing about anything. Then you encounter chapter two and read the word "Cruddy" nineteen times in the first paragraph. Funky, funky, funky was all I could say. I was not prepared for what happened next. Little did I know I would end up saying sick, sick, sick.Cruddy is told from the perspective of Roberta Rohbeson at two different times in her life; as an eleven year old troubled little girl and as a sixteen year old angry teenager. Her story is tough and tragic and tinged with terrible humor. As an eleven year old she is thrust into the raging, alcohol-blurred world of her father who refuses to see her as his daughter. Instead, Roberta is not only his son, called Clyde, but his accomplice. When he discovers her in the backseat of his getaway car he takes her on a murderous journey across the desert fueled by hatred for his suicide-dead father who left him nothing.
As a sixteen year old Roberta is strung out on drugs and driven by abandonment. She befriends a group of outcast suicidal drug dealers who do nothing but fuel her craziness.
This was a book I found myself wondering about long after I put it down. Was Roberta modeled after anyone Lynda knew? What was the acceptable age range for this book? Would parents cringe if they knew their kid was reading this under the covers late at night?
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LibraryThing member jlparent
Dark coming-of-age tale; we meet 16 year old Roberta (aka Clyde, Hillbilly Woman) who narrates the terrible and twisted journey she endured at age 11. Interspersed with this tale, we accompany the now-16 Roberta through her troubled, drug-infused current days. There is dark humor, complexity, and
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twistedness within these illustrated pages - if you like any of that, read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member Irishdart
On restriction for a year for dropping acid and getting caught, Roberta Rohbeson, 16, sits down and writes her autobiography. She tells her story in fits and starts alternating between her current cruddy existence with her mother, her sister and a group of drug friends and her past life as Clyde, a
This book is for older students It is well written using a teenager’s point of view and voice, but it is not a coming of age story. The narrator doesn’t grow so much as she finally comes out of shock. She is a child who was never really a child at all and who would never become an adult. She describes what she sees in language and critical description that is typically young adult. She is obviously fearful but she seldom says so. The subjects and themes are complicated. Readers will be drawn to and disturbed by Roberta’s story. This is not a book to be enjoyed but it is one to be recommended. Grade 10 and above
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deaf, mute boy, on the road with her psychotic, murderous father. In language and dark humor that can only be described as disturbing, she describe in vivid detail both set of experiences with a teenager’s unique point of view. She spends her days with her new friends Vicky, Turtle, and the Stick tripping on LSD and anything else they can get access to. These experiences help her find a way to share her own personal horror story. It’s the first time she’s been able to tell the story of her travels with her father to seek revenge for the wrongs done to him by his own dead father and collect the inheritance that should have been his Writing it down for her sister is the second and last time she tells it. It’s a story of an 11 year old girl, found walking in the desert covered in someone else's blood and carrying a small white dog. It’s about learning to survive. It’s about suicide, greed, mobsters, drug use, slaughterhouses, family, radioactivity and violence.This book is for older students It is well written using a teenager’s point of view and voice, but it is not a coming of age story. The narrator doesn’t grow so much as she finally comes out of shock. She is a child who was never really a child at all and who would never become an adult. She describes what she sees in language and critical description that is typically young adult. She is obviously fearful but she seldom says so. The subjects and themes are complicated. Readers will be drawn to and disturbed by Roberta’s story. This is not a book to be enjoyed but it is one to be recommended. Grade 10 and above
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LibraryThing member allyshaw
One of my favourite books--vivid, disturbing and funny--full of life.
LibraryThing member CaliSoleil
Recommended for: the teenage girl in you*
it's hard to say why i love this book so much. nope--got it. it's because lynda barry captures the combination of anguish and delusional hope that is particular to adolescent girls who hate themselves and everyone else too but nonetheless maintain the
sad? yes. but she makes it so funny, too, in spite of all the acid-tripping, kidnapping, child-molesting and murdering.
the plot defies synopsis. just look at the "map" the author provides on the inside cover. (the illustrations are a big plus even if you're not the kind of person who needs pictures to stay interested.) but here's the key element/source of my love: our little heroine kicks ass and survives.
* when i say i recommend it for the teenage girl in you, i don't mean in an emotionally-retarded, i-still-read-seventeen-magazine, thwarted-childhood way. i'm talking about that inner fireball of fury that should never die.
it's hard to say why i love this book so much. nope--got it. it's because lynda barry captures the combination of anguish and delusional hope that is particular to adolescent girls who hate themselves and everyone else too but nonetheless maintain the
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powerful and naive belief that someday they will be loved. and in pursuit of that life-saving belief in love, they will scarifice themselves to almost anything. sad? yes. but she makes it so funny, too, in spite of all the acid-tripping, kidnapping, child-molesting and murdering.
the plot defies synopsis. just look at the "map" the author provides on the inside cover. (the illustrations are a big plus even if you're not the kind of person who needs pictures to stay interested.) but here's the key element/source of my love: our little heroine kicks ass and survives.
* when i say i recommend it for the teenage girl in you, i don't mean in an emotionally-retarded, i-still-read-seventeen-magazine, thwarted-childhood way. i'm talking about that inner fireball of fury that should never die.
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LibraryThing member damsorrow
Rachel was right.
LibraryThing member msf59
“East Crawford is a road of trash people. Teeth missing and greasy two-color hair on the women and regular greasy hair on the men and all of the people come in two sizes only, very fat or very skinny. And all of them are hacking and all of them are huffing on cigs constantly. It is very hard not
“It wasn't her fault that the father wandered into her life. Chance blew the father in a lot of directions. He rolled around this way and he rolled around that way, deforming everything he brushed up against.”
It is the early 1970s, somewhere in the southwest, as we are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson. She is hunkered down in her “cruddy” house, in her “cruddy” bedroom, and begins to write her memoir. Oh, the stories, she begins to tell...
I know this is a literary cliché, but this is truly a one of a kind book and will not be for everyone. It is dark, disturbing and even grotesque at times. It is a mash-up of Naked Lunch, Paper Moon and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fans of the equally twisted Geek Love will rejoice. There is a steady flow of violence, drug use and parental abuse. It is also beautifully written. There are also impressive illustrations, by the author, that kick off each chapter. I had not read or heard of Lynda Barry before, but what a stunning introduction this is and Roberta is a character for the ages.
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to smoke here.”“It wasn't her fault that the father wandered into her life. Chance blew the father in a lot of directions. He rolled around this way and he rolled around that way, deforming everything he brushed up against.”
It is the early 1970s, somewhere in the southwest, as we are introduced to sixteen year old Roberta Rohbeson. She is hunkered down in her “cruddy” house, in her “cruddy” bedroom, and begins to write her memoir. Oh, the stories, she begins to tell...
I know this is a literary cliché, but this is truly a one of a kind book and will not be for everyone. It is dark, disturbing and even grotesque at times. It is a mash-up of Naked Lunch, Paper Moon and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fans of the equally twisted Geek Love will rejoice. There is a steady flow of violence, drug use and parental abuse. It is also beautifully written. There are also impressive illustrations, by the author, that kick off each chapter. I had not read or heard of Lynda Barry before, but what a stunning introduction this is and Roberta is a character for the ages.
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LibraryThing member KatyBee
This is the darkest, most visceral, weirdest, best book. Lynda Barry is f'ing amazing. That is all.
LibraryThing member 3argonauta
I hated this book but months after reading it, the character is still with me. Maybe I loved it.
Disturbing in an "I wish I could erase this from my mind" sort of way but kept me reading until the end. After finishing the paperback I hid the book to avoid seeing the haunting cover and eventually
I'd recommend reading it. It's genuinely unique, although slightly traumatizing, in a severed penis kinda way.
Disturbing in an "I wish I could erase this from my mind" sort of way but kept me reading until the end. After finishing the paperback I hid the book to avoid seeing the haunting cover and eventually
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donated it to Goodwill just to get it's aura out of my house. Seriously, I'm not superstitious but this thing freaked me out. I'd recommend reading it. It's genuinely unique, although slightly traumatizing, in a severed penis kinda way.
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LibraryThing member oldandnewbooksmell
Trigger Warnings: Murder/Homicides, Drug Use, Drinking
I don't know what I feel about Cruddy. I mean, the whole book was indeed, Cruddy - nobody has a happy ending, nothing positive happens to anyone, there's death around every corner, and nobody is nice to anyone really. I'm not saying it's not a
There were parts of the book where Roberta is writing about someone who is either super high, super drunk, or just being noncoherent, and it's written in such a way that I couldn't read it regardless and had just wished that conversation had been summarized and not written out like that. I thought if maybe I had read the words out loud I might make a bit of sense of it, but I never read this book without someone else around, so I never did that.
I could not stand Vicky. At all. Anytime she talked I just wanted to slap her. One of the most annoying characters I've ever read, and Lynda Barry did a good job at making her that way. And don't get me started on "the father" - just how?? How was he able to do everything that he did and yet nothing happened or no one ended up making connections? I know the before was set in 1967 and the killings tended to be people who didn't have anyone who really cared if they lived or died, but still...
I think that's all I've got to say about it. At least for right now. Here's the one quote Roberta wrote about the father that I thought was interesting:
"After all the things that happened, described and undescribed, if I told you I still loved the father would you understand it? How there was a wire of love running inside of me that I just could not find to pull? It was the side effect of being someone's child, anyone's child, whoever God tossed you to."
I don't know what I feel about Cruddy. I mean, the whole book was indeed, Cruddy - nobody has a happy ending, nothing positive happens to anyone, there's death around every corner, and nobody is nice to anyone really. I'm not saying it's not a
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good book... I just honestly don't know what audience it is for, or how to describe it.There were parts of the book where Roberta is writing about someone who is either super high, super drunk, or just being noncoherent, and it's written in such a way that I couldn't read it regardless and had just wished that conversation had been summarized and not written out like that. I thought if maybe I had read the words out loud I might make a bit of sense of it, but I never read this book without someone else around, so I never did that.
I could not stand Vicky. At all. Anytime she talked I just wanted to slap her. One of the most annoying characters I've ever read, and Lynda Barry did a good job at making her that way. And don't get me started on "the father" - just how?? How was he able to do everything that he did and yet nothing happened or no one ended up making connections? I know the before was set in 1967 and the killings tended to be people who didn't have anyone who really cared if they lived or died, but still...
I think that's all I've got to say about it. At least for right now. Here's the one quote Roberta wrote about the father that I thought was interesting:
"After all the things that happened, described and undescribed, if I told you I still loved the father would you understand it? How there was a wire of love running inside of me that I just could not find to pull? It was the side effect of being someone's child, anyone's child, whoever God tossed you to."
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LibraryThing member lschiff
A really harsh yet compelling story, similar in theme to "The Death of Bees, " but very different in style.
Physical description
8 inches
ISBN
068483846X / 9780684838465