The Quitter by Harvey Pekar is probably as close to an autobiography as we have for Harvey Pekar. That’s kind of strange to say about a person who made their name writing a autobiographical comic book featuring stories from his life, but The Quitter lays out his early life for all to see in typical Pekar fashion. It’s American Splendor in a novel length story and it’s wonderful.

Harvey Pekar started American Splendor in 1976 when he was 37 years old. By this time he was settled into his file clerk job and on the downside of his second marriage. Through his books we followed him into his successful third marriage and the ups and downs of his life. But we only got glimpses of his early years. There were some stories in American Splendor that showed Harvey in his younger years, but they were just glimpses.

With The Quitter, you see Harvey from a young age through his early collaborations with Robert Crumb. The title becomes apparent when we see Harvey start something and then quit as soon as he ran into any trouble. The story shows how an intelligent, hard-working person could find himself in a situation where the best job he could get is a file clerk for 30+ years. The book is wonderfully drawn by Dean Haspiel and it shows us all sides of Harvey Pekar. It was one of the last autobiographical stories he did as he moved into other areas of interest in his later books

If you enjoy American Splendor and wonder how a cranky, irascible, intelligent man ended up so cranky and underemployed, then this is a book for you. Highly recommended.