Summary

When Bechdel was 13, she remembers her father going to see a psychiatrist while her mother was away. She also remembers that time as being the summer of her first period, locusts, Watergate, and her mother acting in a local production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde. Bechdel considers that summer the last of her innocent days, juxtaposed by Watergate. She remembers staying in town for a few days with her best friend, Beth Gryglewicz. Beth’s parents were both professors and very easygoing, Bechdel explains. It was during these few days that Bechdel’s father picked up a local boy, gave him beer, had sex with him, and was then reported by the boy’s older brother. Bechdel believes her father’s decision to see a psychiatrist was a preemptive choice encouraged by her father’s lawyer. It...