Graphic Novel Week: California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas by Pénélope Bagieu

Welcome to Graphic Novel Week! This week, I will be posting reviews of graphic novels, specifically ones from :01, which is a favorite graphic novel publisher of mine. Here's a link to their website.

California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas by Pénélope Bagieu is my consolation prize for being a fat, Jewish girl born too late to meet Cass Elliot. But Bagieu's strange masterpiece took me by the hand and led me through Elliot's life, and her world. Though we may never get to commiserate on the lacking availability of cute plus-size clothing, or talk about our American Jewish experiences (both things that are always fraught with emotion and conflict), reading California Dreamin' was a window into Cass Elliot's colorful life. Say what you will about her--and people have said plenty (much of it untrue)--she was truly an original. Nothing captures her essence better than the book's cover illustration, with Cass in bright red, popping off of the drab background provided by her hometown Baltimore's streets, suitcase at hand, ready for adventure. I knew I was in love with California Dreamin' the moment I saw it.

Mama Cass, born Ellen Naomi Cohen, and known to her friends as Cass Elliot, is one of those people whose legacy is part truth, part storied legend. She was the life of every party, the soul of The Mamas & The Papas, and she was always the most interesting person in the room. One of the most fascinating things about California Dreamin' is that each chapter looks at Elliot through the lens of a different person who knew her. From friends and family to co-workers and bandmates, Cass was somebody unique to everyone she met. By providing her readers with such a variety of viewpoints on the same person, Bagieu was able to paint a comprehensive picture. I closed the book feeling as though I had a firm understanding of who Cass Elliot was and what she was about. But this storytelling technique of Bagieu's also made a powerful point: Cass Elliot was mostly comprised of peoples' conceptions of her. If you knew her, you added part of her identity to the mix with your own interpretation of who she was, and who you thought she should be. Very few (if any) people who knew her managed to imagine her complexly. It was their loss, and hers.

There are many sad truths which come to light in California Dreamin'. Bagieu doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of Elliot's life. Was Cass Elliot hopelessly in love with her male bandmate, or did she just feel the need to gain approval from a man deemed attractive and successful by the masses? California Dreamin' points out something many people don't know: that The Mamas and The Papas needed Cass Elliot to succeed--she didn't need them (she only thought she did). In an age much like today, when music was sold as much on the physical appearance of the artist who creates it as the music they made, a fat girl who didn't fit society's beauty standard was at a disadvantage, no matter how talented she was. Elliot seems to have internalized those messages, constantly selling herself short and making compromises when she could've easily been writing her own ticket with her ferocious talent. For members of the body acceptance movement that could've turned Elliot's life around and worldview upside-down, it is a painful revelation. But, for all her struggles, Cass fought every uphill battle with a smile on her face and a joke coming out of her mouth. (Though, unfortunately, she was frequently the butt of said joke.)

As a reader, I found Bagieu's drawing style bizarre and unsettling, but the way she seemed to follow no rules felt natural for her subject matter. Bagieu's renderings of Elliot in particular are oozing with personality that seems to leap off of the page, as it should. Everyone else portrayed in California Dreamin' feels a little bit more subdued and in the background. From everything I know about Bagieu's subject, this feels right, and perhaps it echoes what it would have been like in the presence of the great Cass Elliot. Here's a link to an article about California Dreamin' and why Bagieu chose to write a graphic novel about Cass Elliot.

There's a playlist Bagieu included at the end of the book, featuring her favorite songs by The Mamas & The Papas and Cass Elliot. In addition to being a great introduction for those readers who may not be familiar, watching the videos on YouTube will be a fond walk down memory lane for those who recall firsthand when the music was originally released. Either way, the best part about the inclusion of such a list is Bagieu's own notes on each song, giving it context within the story of Elliot's life and work. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. This is easily one of the best graphic novels I have ever read.