Becoming Unbecoming

A devastating personal account of gender violence told in graphic-novel form, set against the backdrop of the 1970s Yorkshire Ripper man-hunt.

Publisher Marketing: 1977. A serial murderer is at large in West Yorkshire and the police - despite spending more than two million man-hours hunting the killer and interviewing the man himself no less than nine times - are struggling to solve the case. As this national news story unfolds around her, 12-year-old Una finds herself on the receiving end of a series of violent acts for which she feels she is to blame. 'Unbecoming' explores gender violence, blame, shame and social responsibility. Through image and text Una asks what it means to grow up in a culture where male violence goes unpunished and unquestioned. With the benefit of hindsight Una explores her experience, wonders if anything has really changed and challenges a global culture that demands that the victims of violence pay its cost. Biographical Note : Una is an artist, academic, and comics creator whose work aims to explore lived experience within a socio/historical context. Her self-published graphic narratives have covered disability, psychosis, political activism, and violence against women and girls. "Becoming Unbecoming" is her first graphic novel. Brief Description : Becoming Unbecoming explores gender violence, blame, shame and social responsibility. Through image and text Una asks what it means to grow up in a society in which male violence goes unpunished and unquestioned. With the benefit of hindsight Una explores her experience, wonders if anything has really changed and challenges a global culture that demands that the victims of violence pay its cost. Review Quotes : 'This spectacular novel explores gender violence, blame, shame, and social responsibility. I'm always slightly disappointed at how many people never read graphic novels. This one is exceptional.' - Joanne Harris, Guest Editor, LOVE READING 'We all know I love a graphic memoir and this one book went straight in to my top 10... Una highlights just how bad sexual violence was in the 70s, she mentions Saville, the sensationalisation of the Yorkshire Ripper, the normality of slut shaming and more. She educates on the topic of gender inequality and the violence faced by women to this day. It's both heavy and informative but illustrated perfectly. 5 stars.' - Bex and her Books, 5-star review, Bookstagrammer 'Not only is this a memoir it's a call to arms on sexist culture and gender violence. [Una] educates on the topic of gender inequality and the violence faced by women to this day. It's both heavy and informative but illustrated perfectly.' - 5/5-star review by Bookstagrammer @bexandherbooks 'This memoir is a battle cry, a testament of strength, an angry demand for society to do better. An enormously meaningful and brilliant book I will think of and revisit often.' - Quiet Mountain Reader, Bookstagrammer 'A graphic memoir on sexual violence against women that everyone should read!' - Graphic Reviews, Bookstagrammer 'When it comes to topics such as trauma, words do not always (or usually) suffice. Illustrations can in that regard enrich the textual representation, by making 'moods' or feelings more tangible, while simultaneously allowing the author to move beyond the pressure to find the right words. For me, reading text as well as images was new, but something I'll definitely be more interested in from now on.' - Petite Pinotte, Bookstagrammer ' Becoming Unbecoming is an astounding graphic novel memoir by Una. The artist powerfully explores her experience of childhood sexual assault and shares her astute observations around the culture of toxic masculinity and slut shaming. It's beautifully done.' - Street Noise Books 'She dedicates her book 'to all the others.' It's the first book I ever read that was dedicated to me.' - Sarah Hildebrand, Public Books 'Her book is a roar on behalf of women all over the world. Weaving her story together with headlines about the killer, crime statistics, images of disembodied paper doll clothes and stunningly beautiful drawings of nature, she fills our own thought balloons with more than words can express.' - The Best Memoirs of 2016 - OPRAH.COM 'Una's artwork (mostly black and white, with occasional jolts of flat color) rarely bothers with literal representation for more than a few panels at a time. Instead, she underscores her arguments with symbolic imagery: paper dolls, delicate sketches of imaginary insect-women, distorted and half-concealed contours of rapists' faces.' - New York Times : The Season's Best New Graphic Novels 'This is sequential art that is inventive and dexterous in construction and intent... visual triumph... an emotional impact no reader will quickly forget.' - Broken Frontier 'Touching, moving and tackling a really serious subject. A wonderful, wonderful book.' - Jenni Murray, Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4 'Make no mistake, this is one of the most important comics works of 2015.' - Broken Frontier : Comic of the Week 'An absolute sensation: one of my favourite books of the year and, possibly, the best graphic novel I've ever read.' - The F-Word 'Honest, matter-of-fact and absolutely gut-wrenching... shows what happens when women refuse to be silent. When our voices are heard. When we start to shout back. Read this. Get angry. Start shouting.' - Emerald Street 'Beautiful, haunting... Una illustrates - through prose and graphics - how this fightback [against patriarchal power] is taking place. Consume this book, and be prepared to join the revolution.' - Julie Bindel 'Male violence against women is a major problem - for all of us. This exploration of blame and shame brings home that fact in an immediate way, but also with great delicacy.' - Mary Talbot 'Unflinching, heart-breaking and utterly compelling. Una's story explores how the public silencing of women's voices too often creates a private hell.' - Emma Jane Unsworth 'Among the most powerful books published on misogyny, sexual assault and survival in recent years... Becoming Unbecoming reads with a visceral, gut-wrenching power that cannot be ignored.' - Popmatters 'A feminist call to arms... A graphic memoir on sexual violence against women that everyone should read.' - Bustle 'In Una's simple, spare text and artwork, we get a story about learning how to take ownership over your memories, however painful they might be, and how to gain power by putting brutality into a larger social context and calmly calling your fellow travelers to arms.' - Vulture 'Its pages are overflowing with raw emotion, channelling the cartoonist's immense pain and frustration over the misogyny and violence women face on a regular basis... Becoming Unbecoming feels especially timely at the tail-end of a US election year where misogyny has run rampant.' - The A.V. Club 'It is beautiful to handle, with inky images you want to touch and narrative that falls into prose. It is also a harrowing and politically sharp book...' - Feminist Intelligence 'A graphic manifesto for female empowerment and a punch to the gut of predatory males. A powerfully disturbing graphic narrative from an author with a lot to say and plenty of creative chops to say it provocatively.' - Kirkus Reviews 'An incredibly powerful read... The illustrations are strong and simple but every page is inspiring. You will be thrusting a copy at everybody you know for months after reading it.' - The Beautiful and the Damned 'Straightforward, analytical and educational in its exploration of ingrained misogyny... an astonishing debut which shows Una's talent for subverting the comics medium to powerful effect.' - For Books' Sake 'Makes you feel like you need to speak, to find a voice and not be afraid to use it even when society tries to shout back louder... Una exemplifies the strength of women in a misogynistic climate.' - The Contemporary Small Press 'Harrowing and politically sharp book... Its subject may be in the past, but its feminist ire is entirely present - relevant now as it was then... Una nails it.' - Feminist Intelligence 'A high concept visual style that is seemingly barely contained by the pages across which it unfolds.' - Tech Times 'An example of using the comics medium to weave a personal narrative into gender politics and produce something that is so much more than the sum of its constituent parts.' - Quietus 'I was deeply deeply moved by it, start to finish... It's extraordinarily courageous to write a book like this, and to speak so openly about the experience of abuse. The ending was so powerful, so painful, that I cried hard for longer than a little while.' - Eve's Alexandria 'Joins the dots between the personal and political with breath-taking ease and manages to rewrite the rules of visual storytelling in the process. A profoundly important book that everyone, particularly men, should read immediately.' - Gareth Brookes, Forbidden Planet : Best of the Year 2015 'Not an easy read, but it's a relevant and important one... moves between Una's personal struggles to the broader battles of women everywhere.' - Library Journal 'Just finished Becoming Unbecoming by Una. Incredibly powerful and poetic meditation/memoir on growing up under the shadow of the 70s. Ending just left me reeling.' - Kieron Gillen 'As a piece of graphic journalism it [is] compelling and technically well-constructed... emotionally compelling... and heart-breaking.' - Page 45 'The art is evocative and expressive, while the writing has a reflective, inquiring quality that gives the ideas clarity and gravity; it is simple but not simplistic.' - Graphixia 'An incredibly powerful new graphic novel... the illustrations are beautiful and the words are a powerful demand listen to women's voices.' - Elle 'Brilliant, brave and fiercely intelligent... I read it in one sitting.' - Kerry Hudson 'A sensitively rendered yet powerful exploration of the blame and shame culture that surrounds sexual violence... Becoming Unbecoming should be read by everyone.' - Pamreader 'Delicate in construction yet uncompromising in message, Becoming Unbecoming is an astonishing testament to the potency of visual metaphor.' - Andy Oliver Publisher Marketing : It's 1977 and Una is twelve. A serial murderer is at large in West Yorkshire and the police are struggling to solve the case - despite spending more than two million man-hours hunting the killer and interviewing the man himself no less than nine times. As this national news story unfolds around her, Una finds herself on the receiving end of a series of violent acts for which she feels she is to blame. Through image and text Becoming Unbecoming explores what it means to grow up in a culture where male violence goes unpunished and unquestioned. With the benefit of hindsight Una explores her experience, wonders if anything has really changed and challenges a global culture that demands that the victims of violence pay its cost. Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 12/14/2015 (EAN 9781908434692, Paperback) - *Starred Review Booklist 01/01/2016 pg. 58 (EAN 9781908434692, Paperback) Kirkus Reviews 12/30/0001 (EAN 9781551526539, Paperback) Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2016 (EAN 9781551526539, Paperback) - *Starred Review Contributor Bio: Una Una is a comics artist and writer. She has 20 years of experience in community arts education with adult learners and 8 years of experience lecturing in fine art and illustration. She has a PhD in Fine Art Practice from Loughborough University, MFA (University of Leeds) and a 1st class BA Hons (Leeds Arts University). Una's first graphic novel Becoming Unbecoming(Myriad Editions, 2015) has been widely translated and was featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book and Woman's Hour, Oprah.com and in Newsweek and Elle magazine. Una received Arts Council England (ACE) funding for a creative writing/drawing project which resulted in a 40-page comic book On Sanity: One Day In Two Lives (2016) and a collaborative zine We All Start At The Beginning (2016). Una's latest comic book Cree (2018) was commissioned by New Writing North and Durham Book Festival. She is currently working on a second graphic novel, Eve, for Virago Press and is supported by ACE for two years of professional development.

Format: Paperback | Pages: 208 | Publication Date: 2015-09-30