Inklings

When Jeffrey Koterba was six he started drawing his first cartoons painstakingly copying from the Sunday Omaha World Heralds funny papers and making up his own characters. With a pen and a sheet of white paper he was able to escape into a world that was clean expansive and comfortablea refuge from the pandemonium surrounding him. The tiny house Koterba grew up in was full-to-bursting with garage-sale treasures and televisions his father Art repaired and sold for extra money. A hard-drinking one-time jazz drummer whose big dreams neverseemed to cometrue Art was subject to violent facial and vocal ticssymptoms of Tourettes Syndrome a condition Jeffrey inheritedas well as explosions of temper and eccentricity that kept the Koterba family teetering on the brink of disaster.From the canyons of broken electronics the lightning strikes screaming matches and discouragements great and small emerged a young man determined to follow his creative spirit to grand heights.And much to his surprise he found himself on a journeyback to his family and the father he once longed to escape. An exuberant heart-felt memoir that calls to mind The Tender Bar and Fun Home Inklings is infused with an irresistible optimism all its own.