The Saddest Kid On Earth

I think Ware is commenting generally on the dysfunction that can run in families and that seems, at least to my reading of the book, to be come more pronounced as the generations of Corrigans moves from a simple, rural Illinois to a complex and modern Chicago. Both fathers and mothers seem inept at life.   Desperate, at times needy, and definitely lonely, you don’t wonder why; they all seem self-centered and incapable of sharing themselves with anyone.

We have four generations of non-achieving, not-so-bright men, running the gamut from abusive and sexually maladjusted to quivering, indecisive stutters. Pathetic might be one word to describe Jimmy Corrigan as a whole, but looking at the generations of Corrigan men over time, they are cruel, sadistic, bigoted, and unloving as well as socially maladroit, clumsy, and, ultimately, sad.  Jimmy is so perplexed by genuine emotions that he doesn’t know them when he experiences them; abandoning his step sister as she reacts to her father’s death, he doesn’t realize the sense of loss she feels for what it is until he cries in a cab heading home alone.

Jimmy’s mother seems to be not much better.  Sexually indiscriminate, maybe out of loneliness or desperation, she plays Jimmy throughout the book, taking out her dislike for his father and her own existence by keeping him so attached to her that he has no life of his own.  Until, in the end, when she needs him no longer, she pushes him out to be replaced by a new man. No surprise that Jimmy escapes into fantasy.  One wonders how often this has happened to him in the past.  To the Corrigan men, women in general are as confusing and cruel as the red-headed school girl who taunts his grandfather.

The city of Chicago also undergoes a transformation as we move through this history of Jimmy’s ancestors.  Ware’s flashbacks, at times confusing, take us from a more bucolic and simpler city in the past, to a depressingly dark place where Jimmy goes through the motions.  The rain and snow never seem to end in his life and the dark canyons become a metaphor for the Corrigans.

While Jimmy is the product of this dysfunctional genetic line, Ware shows us, through his adopted step sister Amy, that there are those who do not give up and let the world beat them down.  We don’t see much of her, but she shows compassion for Jimmy and love for his father.  Listening to him talk about his life, she seems to realize that nobody has cared for him before.  She explains to him that spelling “HI” with bacon strips is his fathers way of expressing affection and seems to understand the disconnection he feels.

In the end, one hopes that Jimmy is not successful with his new office mate.  The thought of more Corrigan males is too depressing to contemplate.  While I enjoyed reading Jimmy Corrigan – The Smartest Kid On Earth, it is best if this Corrigan is the last of the line.