Communal Life (Gates of Eden 1) – page 1

There are quite a few of Rick Geary’s stories that are written in the first person and although I would say the majority of these are flights of imagination because they are narrated by, amongst others, an astronaut, a woman who lived through the 1933 US earthquake, murderers and murderesses, there are a small number which to my mind are if not totally autobiographical then at least semi-autobiographical and it seems to me (although I could be barking up the wrong tree; it would not be the first time) that this is one such story. The timeline matches what would be RG’s and his alma mater was a midwestern college and although I cannot be sure of his politics I think that they are fairly liberal.

In his introduction to the At Home with Ricky Geary collection Dale Luciano picks out this specific story as being particularly strong, and writes, “One of my favorite strips in this book, “Communal Life,” is, for example, a beautifully concise summation of an entire era. In its own understated way, it is a masterpiece of reflective thought and retrospective assessment. Geary tells us of a single event and subtly suggests how it influenced one individual’s withdrawal from the activist idealism of the 1960s. In so doing he meticulously defines an attitude of disillusion not uncommon among those who lived during the era and harbored great expectations for the regeneration of an entire society. Also, Geary's indirect commentary on the practicability of communal living — “A year later we were all buying our own belongings — and labeling them” — contains the wry disappointment of one who believed a generation could learn to overcome acquisitive, materialistic values to achieve a genuine sharing, but never saw anything like this realized in practice. The tone is bemused cynicism, and Geary's detached, slightly abstracted style carries a melancholy undertone that is exactly right for the piece. If I’m especially partial to “Communal Life,” it’s because it so concisely interprets a troubled time in terms of its particular influence on the personal sphere of its creator. It tells us something of what it felt like to live through some of those years. This is merely one aspect of Geary at his very best.”


I never in my wildest dreams thought when I read this story for the first time in 1986 that I would one day own the original art for it. I also never thought that it would have special significance for me because of personal identification, because I would have a similar though far from identical experience as that depicted in this story.

The closest I have ever gotten to communal life was in the first year of higher education when I resided in a hall of residence – I think they are called dorms in the US – when I shared half a floor with eight other young guys, because I was young then, which meant communal use of two toilets, a set of washbasins, a kitchen, a shower room, and a bathroom. It wasn’t bad; and in fact it was quite nice for the time, although I don’t think it would pass muster with today’s intake of students who would want wi-fi equipped ensuites as a bare minimum. However, a year of the smell of burnt toast, and even worse odour of rotten feet in the shower room, as well as the casually-discarded, heavily-thumbed pornography left on the shared landing was enough to put me off opting for such living arrangements ever again.

(continued)