My Captain America, Megan Margulies
My Captain America, Megan Margulies
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My Captain America
A Granddaughter's Memoir of a Legendary Comic Book Artist

Author: Megan Margulies

Narrator: Natasha Soudek

Unabridged: 6 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Oasis Audio

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

A finely wrought coming-of-age memoir about the author’s relationship with her beloved grandfather Joe Simon, cartoonist and co-creator of Captain America.

In the 1990s, Megan Margulies’s Upper West Side neighborhood was marked by addicts shooting up in subway stations, frequent burglaries, and the “Wild Man of 96th Street,” who set fires under cars and heaved rocks through stained glass church windows. The world inside her parents’ tiny one-bedroom apartment was hardly a respite, with a family of five—including some loud personalities—eventually occupying the 550-square-foot space.

Salvation arrived in the form of her spirited grandfather, Daddy Joe, whose midtown studio became a second home to Megan. There, he listened to her woes, fed her Hungry Man frozen dinners, and simply let her be. His living room may have been dominated by the drawing table, notes, and doodles that marked him as Joe Simon the cartoonist. But for Megan, he was always Daddy Joe: an escape from her increasingly hectic home, a nonjudgmental voice whose sense of humor was as dry as his farfel, and a steady presence in a world that felt off balance.

Evoking New York City both in the 1980s and ’90s and during the Golden Age of comics in the 1930s and ’40s, My Captain America flashes back from Megan’s story to chart the life and career of Rochester-native Joe Simon, from his early days retouching publicity photos and doing spot art for magazines, to his partnership with Jack Kirby at Timely Comics (the forerunner of Marvel Comics), which resulted in the creation of beloved characters like Captain America, the Boy Commandos, Fighting American, and The Fly.

My Captain America offers a tender and sharply observed account of Megan’s life with Daddy Joe—and an intimate portrait of the creative genius who gave us one of the most enduring superheroes of all time.

About The Author

Megan Margulies earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from Lesley University. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Woman's Day, and she was consulting editor for her grandfather Joe Simon's autobiography, My Life in Comics. Megan now lives outside of Boston with her husband and two daughters.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dlmrose

2.5......more

Goodreads review by Beyo

A great book by the talented Mz Megan Margulies, It cleverly weaves together two stories, one about the life and career of Joe Simon, and the other about Megan's own personal experiences growing up in New York City with her family in the 80s and 90s. Megan's childhood was marked by the difficulties......more

Goodreads review by MS

Like the author, I grew up in 1980s New York City. The book contains many hilarious and accurate evocations of 1980s and 1990s NYC. Half of my family is Jewish (my dad's side), while both of Margulies's parents are Jewish. Like the author, I expatriated from NYC in young adulthood and settled into a......more