Werther’s Originals, the Bechdel test, and a lightness of touch
With Alison Bechdel and Sadia Nowshin
In 2006 Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home crossed my desk; I was literary editor of The Times, in those days. I’d never read a book like it; but then, no one had. For those of us not already steeped in the world of graphic novels, Art Spiegelman’s Maus — a profound reckoning with the legacy of the Holocaust — had demonstrated the radical potential of the form. Bechdel’s Fun Home is also a complex memoir, considering life and death and sexuality with a depth and a lightness of touch that remains astonishing.
We’re thrilled to present an extract of her new book. Spent, in Boundless today. It’s a kind of marvellous hybrid, a novel whose protagonist is called ‘Alison Bechdel’ but whose friends and neighbours are the wonderful characters she created for her seminal strip, Dykes to Watch Out For — on our podcast she told me how wonderful it was to be reunited with them, so listen out. And yes, of course, she’s that Alison Bechdel: the notion of the ‘Bechdel test’, in which a movie has to contain a conversation in which two women talk about something other than a man, comes from DTWOF.
Spent is serious and joyous, acerbic and compassionate. It’s rare to be able to combine such qualities, and in tough times it’s inspiring to see. Enjoy — and hey, raise a glass with me tomorrow, May 24, to the Brooklyn Bridge, which celebrates its 142nd birthday. You might hear more about it next week…
Erica Wagner
Editor-at-Large
Werther’s Originals, and a changed high street
Sadia Nowshin remembers the shopping street of her childhood, and the people who once made it what it was
The first house I lived in was a 15 minute walk from my grandparents. My brother and I spent every school holiday with them, which often meant traipsing reluctantly behind them to the greengrocers on Coventry’s Stoney Stanton Road, a high street that segmented the journey between houses almost exactly halfway.
Crates of fruit and vegetables jutted out into the pavement, rolls of satin-like lime green plastic bags fluttered above our heads, hand-drawn price tags on neon orange cards begged to be haggled with. Every shop smelled distinct; a waft of cumin, fresh fabric just unpacked from its plastic wrap, a breeze carrying the scent that my grandad dabbed on his wrists every morning. I’d hold my breath and avert my eyes away from the carcasses hanging up in the window of the butchers, a habit I still keep. A sweet shop opened round the corner, and I’d exhale in time to make my appeal; three little ziplock bags for £1, and 20 minutes spent choosing.
Just off the high street was a youth centre that had once kept my unruly uncles busy in their teens, and then a generation later gave my peers somewhere to spend after-schools and weekends. One Saturday, I was there without any money for a snack and the cook slipped me a warm croissant laden with jam, crisp at the edges where it had caught in the toaster.
Every Saturday morning, there’d be a knock at our front door and I’d struggle with the deadlock until it gave way, revealing my grandad on the other side carrying two blue plastic bags of shopping collected on his walk across that high street. Loose potatoes, netted onions with flakes of crispy skin peeling off, mangoes that had been prodded and squeezed for inspection, bags of fragrant spices, bundles of coriander spilling out of the top. He’d rest the load on the floor beside the sofa and, before sitting, reach into his coat pocket. My brother and I would stand attentively and receive our bounty gratefully: a chocolate Lion bar and a Werther’s Original hard caramel each.
The street feels different these days.
Sadia Nowshin is the Junior Editor at Boundless Magazine
Putting food on the table
An extract from the comic novel Spent by Alison Bechdel
Read the rest of the extract:
Spent by Alison Bechdel was published by Jonathan Cape on 22nd May 2025 (£22) and is available for preorder now
Representation, capitalism, and a different kind of autobiography
Enjoyed the extract above? To chat out more about her process, her history of comic drawing, and being reunited with characters of years past, Alison also joined Erica on the latest episode of the Boundless podcast — you can listen now on Apple Podcasts / Spotify