Spinning – Tillie Walden

Spinning – Tillie Walden – (400 pages, English, softcover, published by First Second)

Spinning

12-year-old Tillie gets up before dawn every day to train. From a young age, she has been on the ice with the dream of figure skating at the highest level. She has talent, but she has to work hard for it. When the family moves to Texas, much changes in her life. A different school, a different team, different training and routines. She knows she isn't everyone's friend, and the move to Texas makes it difficult to reconnect with others. This is partly because she has known since childhood that she is lesbian and has already experienced that not everyone can handle that positively.

Tillie Walden

‘Spinning’ (2017) is an autobiographical graphic novel by American comic artist Tillie Walden, known for, among others, ‘On A Sunbeam’ and ‘Are You Listening’. The book describes a period of approximately 4 years starting from her age of 12. Each chapter is introduced by a technical description of a figure skating exercise, symbolic of the chapter. Walden describes in great detail what it is like to practice a sport at a high level as a growing teenager. She is very driven and feels responsible for the team's performance, but at the same time often excluded and lonely. Especially because she feels she always has to carry a secret and can never be completely herself. Something that becomes painfully clear when her secret relationship with Rae is discovered. As a young woman, she also experiences that as her body matures, her appearance seems to become more important than her performance. And also how she has to be increasingly wary of the men around her.

‘Spinning’ is an impressive and substantial (400 pages) coming-of-age autobiography with which Tillie Walden showed what she is capable of as a comic artist. And this did not go unnoticed; the book received many positive reviews and was awarded, among others, the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.