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The Good Times are Killing Me

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Nationally syndicated cartoonist Lynda Barry's moving, quirky and honest first novel about a young girl's coming of age--which has also been a hit off-Broadway play--is back in print, with new artwork by the author. In The Good Times Are Killing Me , Lynda Barry reveals her masterful way with story, memory, and feelings, and anyone who lingers in Edna Arkins's world will be the better for it.

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

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About the author

Lynda Barry

45 books1,064 followers
Lynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author, perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews
Profile Image for mark monday.
1,727 reviews5,488 followers
March 25, 2021
an adolescent girl's voice, perfectly captured in all of its off-kilter oddness, its i-am-not-understanding-this-cruel-stupid-world-ness.

race, specifically black & white, sometimes black vs. white.

friendship, challenged. families, challenged. a neighborhood changing in the 60s. school and all of its terrors (and some of its joys). music appreciation, lots of it. lots of it.

measure out heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal parts. delicate, tough-minded, sensitive, empathetic, real. lovely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY2fr...

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Profile Image for Jeanette (Ms. Feisty).
2,179 reviews2,049 followers
June 27, 2010
This is told in the voice of 12-year-old Edna Arkins, somewhat like Ellen Foster except that Edna's life is not as troubled as Ellen's.
The voice here is quite convincing, dwelling on just the sort of things you'd expect a 12-year-old girl in the 1960s to be concerned about.

The most interesting part of the book for me was the Music Notebook at the back. It gives brief histories of the various music styles of the South and some musician bios. Not a lot of detail, but it was surprising how much I learned. And it has some fine and funky mixed media artwork.

The version I read was the original from 1988, so it looks different than the 1999 one pictured here. This more recent version may not have the Music Notebook in the back, which would be a bummer. Look for the one with a blue cover and a picture of houses and upside down angels on the front.
Profile Image for Melody.
2,649 reviews287 followers
January 22, 2018
Loved this! Barry is brilliant. One of her especial gifts, I think, is that she's retained the ability to pull out what her protagonist is focusing on with perfect tone. Sweat-stained armpits. Octopus furnace. Details that evoke age/time/place in a way that's entirely compelling. I loved the mini biographies at the end. My favorite part was the heartbreakingly poignant afterword.
Profile Image for Ed Erwin.
1,005 reviews118 followers
July 30, 2018
This is a prose novel, with small black-and-white sketch illustrations. I state this right away because the majority of Lynda Barry's publications are comics. (I'm shelving this as a "comic", just because....)

It is a bittersweet novel of a lonely 6th grader Edna in the late 60s in Seattle, dealing with the usual growing-up stuff with a special emphasis on her love of music, making friends, and changing race relations.
How can a song do that? Be like a net that catches a whole entire day, even a day whose guts you hate? You hear it and all of a sudden everything comes hanging back in front of you, all tangled up in that music.
I had read this already, probably 20 years ago, and was let down because it wasn't as fantastic as my (perhaps) favorite book of all time: Cruddy, also by Lynda Barry. I only read it again because I found a copy randomly. I'm so glad I gave it another chance. It really is as good as Cruddy, but so very different. While they are both stories told from the point of view of a young girl, in this one the girl is not on an LSD trip or murder spree! (Cruddy is a very dark book.)

The Edna in this book feels very much like Barry's character "Marlys". Both are probably partly auto-biographical to some extent.drawing of Marlys

All editions have reproductions of Barry's mixed-media portraits of musicians at the end, after the story. The musicians include artists from blues, country, and Cajun music, and aren't ones mentioned in the story, but must be ones that the real Lynda Barry is interested in. Example, Ma Rainey: mixed-media image of singer Ma Rainey

The 2017 edition includes a short new afterword, also in the mixed-media collage style that Barry uses now, memorializing the girl who inspired one of the characters in the semi-autobiographical story.
In real life we had no idea what we were talking about and we knew exactly what we were talking about: life, liberty and justice for all. Equality, peace and the right to play kickball together no matter what our people thought of each other.


These days Lynda Barry spends much of her time teaching classes on creativity. I'm sure she is excellent at it. But I would love more prose novels from her.
Profile Image for Patricia.
Author 3 books46 followers
December 8, 2008
This was my first read of Lynda Barry. Actually once I started it a friend reminded me that I'd seen a theater production of this a number of years back. Barry is marvelous at capturing the voice of Edna her main character, a child of about 11 or so who is in the 6th grade, as well as the voices of the folks who are in Edna's life. Aunt Margaret's voice was particularly authentic as was that of her daughter Ellen and Edna's best friend Bonna. The quality of voice probably explains why this book adapted well to the stage. The other strong feature is how wonderfully Barry discusses the child's encounters with and appreciation of music. One of my favorite chapters was the one the speaks of the terrific black teacher in 3rd grade who got everyone to sing and enjoy it compared to later teachers who bombed at music instruction though that was their primary charge. This was a good introduction to Lynda Barry and I look forward to reading more.
Profile Image for Alvin.
Author 9 books135 followers
February 13, 2021
Barry's ability to conjure up the strangeness of childhood in a story is unsurpassed. There's some fun in here, but it's a sad story about growing up in a messed up society and how that messedupedness ends a friendship. There are also some drawings of musicians with little bios in back that have nothing to do with the story but are quite nice.
Profile Image for Claire.
23 reviews
February 17, 2023
I feel at a loss for words to describe how good this was. Lynda Barry knows how to slice me open and I want to read everything she's ever made a million times...to have just a drop of her clarity would be a treasure. Unbelievably good
Profile Image for Blue.
1,162 reviews54 followers
February 1, 2018
Lynda Barry's The Good Times Are Killing Me is different than One Hundered Demons; the latter is entirely comic/art based, while the former is mostly prose with a small drawing to start each vignette and the art work (collage, drawing, etc) more in the music album and afterword at the end of the book. The story in Good Times is threaded through with music, especially that special place music plays in young people's lives before things felt are properly named, before adulthood "defines" everything. From the lullabies to first songs to corny music to music only some people listen to, the judgements and joys of life and society are focused through the lens of music and told from the point of view of a young (white) girl who's best friend, for a time, is a feisty, black girl. The friendship, from its rocky, rule-breaking start to its sad, heart-breaking end is the definition of coming-of-age. The innocence and naiveté is balanced with spunk, intensity, and energy particular to younger people.

Recommended for those who like kickball, hillbilly music, kicking ass, and piano lessons.
Profile Image for Klley.
145 reviews25 followers
October 29, 2013
Well one thing that they never tell you in the grade school is to enjoy singing while you can because eventually you are going to be divided up by who can sing and who can't sing, and the people who can sing will go to Choir, and the ones who can't sing won't sing, and may never sing again, and go to the class called "Music Appreciation" where a teacher will give you a piece of cardboard printed with the life-size keys of a piano and then teach you how to play "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" on it to a record.
How you get tested for your singing is, the first week of junior high school you report to the auditorium during music period and find out you have to stand alone on the stage except for a ninth grader playing the piano, and sing "America the Beautiful" while the rest of the class sits around drawing on their folders or staring at you while they wait for their turns. You get a score and then that's it. The End.
If you are too scared to sing by yourself, you can forfeit, but you automatically go to Music Appreciation. It's a big school and they don't have time to fool around.
Profile Image for Jane.
83 reviews7 followers
January 27, 2010
Lynda Barry does it again! This is one of her earlier books (for me anyway) and it is text with just a few graphics. Her ability to tell a story isn't hampered by the lack of images. There's no one like her for conveying the voice of a child in the adults' world. This book centers around the friendship between a white girl (probably autobiographical) with a black girl and its devastation after the girls make that seismic shift from childhood to preteen/middle school age. [BTW this is considered a Young Adult book and very short.:]
Profile Image for Geoff Balme.
213 reviews2 followers
January 21, 2018
The finest of chronicling that pre-teen and early teen mess of finding our way in a world of clumsy and imperfect revelations - Barry never misses a beat and has a memory for detail that'll make you connect like a bullet in a chamber. On Letterman a million years ago she said her favorite television was anything that had cell division in it. She's an unsung genius.
Profile Image for Ruth York.
570 reviews7 followers
November 2, 2020
A lovely story, told in the voice of a young girl in the 60's. She lives on a street that has evolved from being predominately white to being mixed. The book highlights the racial tensions, and how they affected the children caught up in them. The voice of Edna is genuine. It would be a good book to help teach young people what life was like in the 60's from another child's perspective.
223 reviews8 followers
March 20, 2017
I loved this short book. It was written like a book report would have been written. I was brought up in the 50 and 60 when racism was very much alive and well. I also grew up in a neighborhood with parents who were struggling to make it as a family. This book took me right back there, including the feelings that would come from a song of those days. Music being how we communicated with each other. Phrases, church services and so much more packed into this little book. This was my first time reading this author but it won't be the last.
Profile Image for Greg.
Author 8 books34 followers
November 17, 2017
There are times when I wish Lynda Barry would write more prose fiction, but I'm not sure I could take my heart getting crushed by her characters on such a regular basis.
Profile Image for Stephanie Tournas.
2,302 reviews28 followers
November 9, 2017
I should start with a disclaimer - I am a huge fan of Lynda Barry and her comics. Her art manages to entertain and provoke, on a personal and social level. This book, a reprint of the original published in 1988, is a gem for the ages. Edna Arkins is a white adolescent in a gritty Seattle neighborhood in the 1960s. She become friends with a black neighbor, Bonna Willis, and describes the era and her family and relationships with humor and a uniquely rough sensitivity, which is so real and rich. Adolescence is such an entertaining time of life, and Edna is the perfect spokesperson for her kind: she is influenced by the off-hand racism of adults, but is keenly observant of her world and determined to make her own way. That makes this a perfect YA selection and an important read for adults who think they have packed away racism as an inevitable part of life. We cringe with Edna and we see where it all starts. Chapters begin with initial illustrations in black and white, in a rough sketch style. Even though these are spare, Barry makes facial expressions count for a lot. The big artistic treats come at the end. The "Music Notebook" is 35 pages of color biographical sketches of real life musicians, with full page mixed media portraits in hammered tin frames. Each portrait has such great personality and eccentricity, echoing the subjects' mainly seat of the pants life and mostly too early demise. And the book is a three-fer! The third part is a short section of Barry's signature notebook style art and musings on her childhood, echoing the life of Edna Arkins, in full color.

For librarians: Lynda Barry fans will be happy to revisit this book, and enjoy the new hardcover version with a new cover depicting a taped together record player playing an LP. Introduce this to young adults and old adults who like short fiction or graphic novels in a memoir style.
Profile Image for Andrew.
183 reviews
July 31, 2017
Interesting, dark, quas-nostalgic and humourous, much like Ms. Barry's comic series Ernie Pook's Comeek... and to some extent her novel, Cruddy. The Good Times Are Killing Me tell the story of 1960's tween-ness in a downwardly mobile Civil Rights era Northern State U.S.A. The protagonist Edna deals with her burgeoning political and social awareness, discovers a love for music and attempts to forge and maintain a friendship with a black girl who lives in her neighbourhood.

All the hallmarks of Ms. Barry's work are evident here, from the monsterous, self-involved, ignorant and malevolent adults, to the freaks and weirdos who rarely get a happy ending. A couple of the vignettes are lifted right from her comics, or visa versa.

Overall, not of the same high standard as her comics... and nowhere near as poignant, disturbing and riveting as Cruddy, perhaps her high water mark as an artist (so far).

Well worth the read for though, because to say it's not the best of Barry's work, still makes it head and shoulders better than most things.
Profile Image for Emilia P.
1,719 reviews64 followers
January 11, 2009
Oh Lynda, I love you. There are a couple of reasons I am not married to this book--it seemed sort of like it held back a little bit for the sake of the kids, no swears, no super super uncomfortable situations, trying a little to get a greater meaning out of them. It had all the important touchstones of a good Barry-crazy families, crazy neighborhoods, crazy schools, the ineffable weirdness of childhood, and I love of those and I need them, and I want to write about them too a little. Maybe the next Barry on my list--What It Is--will teach me how. I also was a big of fan of her representing on a very basic level just how difficult interracial friendship is. Girl Scouts was weird, and things do change in junior high, too much. Right on, L.B.
Profile Image for corinne.
43 reviews20 followers
February 1, 2009
Oh my goodness - Lynda Barry is so damn funny. There are some vivid images in this book that rest real comfortably in the childlike psyche of the narrator. Like the narrator sitting in front of the phonograph listening to elvis presley and puncturing the black fabric over the speakers slowly and rhythmically with a pencil, the soft thud of pencil entry giving her a satisfying feeling somewhere down there.
In addition to being funny, Lynda Barry is also very introspective on race relations from a child's point of view.
Profile Image for Patty May.
16 reviews2 followers
April 11, 2010
I love Lynda Barry so, I'm pretty biased, but this is a very sweet, short coming of age story woven trough a fabric of music. the music notebook in the back is a great tribute to the lives of musicians that are illustrated with fabulous painted portraits, and short, rich biographical sketches. I learned that Louis Armstrong became a great trumpet player because of the twist of fate that got him arrested and locked up in the "Colored Waif's Home" where there was a music teacher who handed him a trumpet....
Profile Image for Jaina Bee.
264 reviews49 followers
March 20, 2018
It is fascinating to go back and reread this earlier version of Lynda's autobiofictionography. The characters are so familiar to me, and i feel i know things about them that they hadn't yet revealed at this point. Things revealed in later publications. Lynda Barry's world is a real place for me, and i can never get enough of her guided tours.
Profile Image for Robert.
131 reviews8 followers
September 24, 2017
This is one of my favorite books. Ever. It's beautiful and heart wrenching and deeply disturbing all at the same time.
Profile Image for Sundry.
663 reviews27 followers
March 17, 2009
Lynda Barry has complete access to the eleven-year-old psyche. Wonderful little book.
Profile Image for Trace Reddell.
Author 2 books2 followers
October 1, 2022
This is an amazing little book. The voice of our narrator Edna Arkins is so vivid and feels so real and accurate, not just in the things that she observes and tunes into, but the way the young child at the cusp of transition from elementary to junior high mentally and emotionally processes their own recent past.

What thrilled me most about this reading experience was all the portals that it opened up in my own memory of being out on the block all day and evening, of negotiating young friendships and the rapid changes to social structures and how cliques evolve, of going to other kids' houses and just tuning into the weirdness of their families and the stuff they had, of making territorial determinations about places, safety, and people in general based on which side of the alley they lived on or which block they lived on, and where dangers like older siblings or weird adults lurked or even just houses where you knew people lived but you never even saw them.

There is an innocence involved in this narrative but maybe a stronger sense of how much kids really tune into and can articulate, even when they don't have the whole picture of adult lives and traumas around them. Barry's writing here is just so good at creating atmospheres that carry the weight of the stories.

I look forward to reading this again.
Profile Image for Octavia Cade.
Author 86 books124 followers
May 2, 2021
This is an odd but appealing mix of fiction and nonfiction. The first two thirds of the book are a young adult novel, a coming of age type story in which a young girl navigates a difficult family life and the challenges of racism - particularly her own. It can be quite an uncomfortable read, as what Edna understands (or doesn't) about what's going on around her is often much more limited than what the reader understands is happening, so there are parts that just made me cringe... which I imagine is precisely the effect that Barry was going for. As a sort of aesthetic backdrop to the story, set in the 1950s or the 1960s I think, is Edna's appreciation for music, which is pretty much one of the few bright spots in her life.

The last third of the book are sketches - and when I say sketches, I mean page long summaries paired with actual paintings - that illustrate influential musicians and music styles of the early and mid twentieth century. They're interesting, and interesting in a different way than the novel, if only because music isn't something I know a great deal about. Even if I've a bare familiarity with the styles described here, a lot of the people featured are new to me, and I do like to learn new things.
Profile Image for Lily O'Donnell.
66 reviews2 followers
January 24, 2021
Lynda Barry is magic. She writes abt parts of myself that I forgot existed and I didn’t think anyone else knew about. She makes me love the kid im often ashamed of having been. This book is about so much and it’s so wonderful. For me, it seemed to be especially about humiliation and that humiliation and hurt of being a kid. She kind of covers it best in the afterword: “we had no idea what we were talking about and we knew EXACTLY what we were talking about...” you never know pain as well as you do when yr a kid. That’s my take at least. It’s simple but it’s not, but it is, it’s everything and nothing and it’s all felt at once and moves quickly and slowly. I love love love this book even though (maybe especially because) it made me feel intensely emotional. I love that Lynda Barry is a person that exists and I have access to these little reflections from her mind. She is the biggest inspiration to me and how I deal w my brain and my memories. Recommend this book fully to anyone ready to step back into their childhood psyche and enjoy the ups and downs that comes with.
Profile Image for Eric.
273 reviews14 followers
March 14, 2024
Wonderful book. Tribute to a now deceased childhood friend of the author's, it conjures the charm & thrill of growing up with a great deal of joy & humor, while also touching on the disappointment & disenchantment that comes with the discovery that adults as well as kids can be fatally flawed: bigoted, ignorant & mean-spirited. Barry's stand-in Edna cannot help but live in a world where the foolish & small-minded adults set the tone for the community, where the spread of prejudice & fear contaminates everything. That great sadness never veers into melancholy. Barry is particularly skilled at recalling the emotions of youth & putting a compelling voice to them, taking us along into Edna's adventures. At first I found myself comparing this book unfavorably to the fantastic & outrageous Cruddy (Barry's prose masterpiece?), but I quickly got dialed into what she was doing here. Deceptively simple, with an almost YA tone about it, yet grasping great truths & encompassing a universe not-so distant that the author has thankfully transcended, both then & now, as should we all.
Profile Image for Kathleen Maguire.
241 reviews12 followers
April 16, 2018
I love Lynda Barry so much, for her approach to teaching writing and for her own artful storytelling. This book struck me on so many levels: the narrator's relationship to her parents, the adults' relationships with each other, the narrator's emergence into adolescence and navigation of the contradictions between her youthful perceptions and the realities of the grown-up world.

Lynda Barry can seamlessly blend writing and visual art into a process of discovery. In this little masterpiece, she also examines the role of popular music in the shaping of identity and perceptions of the world. She even includes a playlist as an appendix, and of course it is visually stunning.

For any teachers reading this review, I plan to use the final chapter (and maybe the playlist) as a mentor text for narrative writing.
Profile Image for Lawrence.
800 reviews12 followers
November 24, 2019
Maybe this felt more groundbreaking when it was first published, but the autobiographicalish novellette with the impossibly naive narrator just seems kind of old hat now.

The frankness of addressing race and poverty is solid, but none of the insights or stories are that compelling, it all just sort of is.

Girl grew up poor and uncool and reflects back on it all in a faux-naïf voice to boldly state all the subtext. It just feels like there's no depth or mystery beneath it all. It's all plainly presented on the page, easily accessible to you. It's not bad, but it's just a solid execution of a story your gran may tell. Good for a light afternoon quick read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews

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