“All The Answers”

Life is full of relationships that are supposed to be one way, but never quite live up to the stereotype. For Michael Kupperman, his relationship with his father was strained, frustrating, and mysterious. Kupperman attributes some of that to his father’s childhood, where he was a radio and television star as part of Quiz Kids, a popular program that pitted young geniuses in competition against one another. The younger Kupperman explores his father’s life as a Quiz Kid and beyond in “All the Answers,” a book that, despite the title, still leaves the author wondering why.

Cover by Michael Kupperman

Written and illustrated by Michael Kupperman

In this moving graphic memoir, Eisner Award-winning writer and artist Michael Kupperman traces the life of his reclusive father—the once-world-famous Joel Kupperman, Quiz Kid. That his father is slipping into dementia—seems to embrace it, really—means that the past he would never talk about might be erased forever.

Joel Kupperman became one of the most famous children in America during World War II as one of the young geniuses on the series Quiz Kids. With the uncanny ability to perform complex math problems in his head, Joel endeared himself to audiences across the country and became a national obsession. Following a childhood spent in the public eye, only to then fall victim to the same public’s derision, Joel deliberately spent the remainder of his life removed from the world at large.

With wit and heart, Michael Kupperman presents a fascinating account of mid-century radio and early television history, the pro-Jewish propaganda entertainment used to counteract anti-Semitism, and the early age of modern celebrity culture.

All the Answers is both a powerful father-son story and an engaging portrayal of what identity came to mean at this turning point in American history, and shows how the biggest stages in the world can overcome even the greatest of players.

Being a “Quiz Kid” seems to have seriously messed up Joel Kupperman, even if he’s never really forthcoming about how it did so. But the combination of force participation, fame, backlash, and the lack of a childhood all mixed together and led Kupperman to be an unhappy man and a distant father. When asked by his son, Michael, if he loves him, his answer was “Some of the time.”

“All the Answers” is Michael’s attempt to come to terms with his father’s childhood and, in turn, his own. It’s an easy read, but a tough swallow, as both childhoods seem so rife with tension and unhappiness. Michael never quite comes out and says that his father was a prick, or that his life wasn’t very happy growing up, but the clues are all there to show that the Kupperman household wasn’t exactly one you’d like to raise your own kids in.

Michael puts together the book in a way that tells his father’s story in a relatively straightforward way, with slight diversions for context or some conjecture, allowing his story and his father’s to intersect. From a narrative standpoint, the storytelling is relatively standard, with few surprises, in terms of structure. But the art manages to surprise in a few ways.

The most striking decision, art-wise, was Kupperman’s decision to tell the modern day/non Quiz Kids in a more cartoony style, with lots of implied motion and narrative flair. Joel’s story is told in a far more static style, reflecting the snapshots in his scrapbooks. Both the actual artwork and the way it is presented takes on a more posed, photo-realistic style when telling Joel’s story. That decision makes sense, as Michael only learned the story from photos, newspaper articles, and second hand accounts; no matter how hard he tries, he can’t see a complete picture.

That’s not to say that all of Joel’s story comes off as stilted or disconnected. While there are a lot of photos recreated, this isn’t “The Beatles Story” or a similarly faux-traced book. The photos are supposed to appear frozen in time, preserved in amber. There’s no attempt to present those photos as a true representation of the events. They are an approximation, a best guess, a hypothesis by Michael to make sense of his dad’s life.

On the other side of that, the pieces of the story that he experienced first hand feel more like a traditional graphic memoir. There is a sequence about losing both his son and his dad in New York one day that is harrowing. In that one scene, it shows Michael as a far more emotionally available and caring father than Joel was, though he never quite casts Joel as a monster, either. He doesn’t need to; you can understand how difficult his life would have been when he puts together scenes like this.

I found myself far more interested in the bits about Joel as a post-celebrity trying to make his way in the world. He avoids both his children and any Quiz Kids responsibilities, and it begs the question: was Joel an absent father because even seeing his children brought back some trauma of his youth? It’s a sad question to have to ask, because it is clear in the book that he does care about his family, just not in a way that we recognize as traditionally caring.

With his home in Connecticut, his teaching obligations, and his books, Joel allows the world to shrink around him. Instead of traveling the world, being broadcast over the airwaves, he creates a little enclave for himself, to give himself some peace. But that peace is conditional; the peace depends on everyone else leaving him alone. What sort of a life is that for a family to live?

There is one passage that I want to highlight, because it rang so true to me. Kupperman is talking about how it was forbidden in his home to bring up Quiz Kids.

“When you avoid talking about one conspicuous thing in a family, soon you start talking about any conspicuous things in a family. It’s like a form of rot.

I instantly took a photo of this page and saved it on my phone, as a reminder. In the past few years, many folks have found themselves in the same situation I found myself in, which was a Trump-induced breakdown of communication in my family. For the better part of the last two years, I’ve found it very hard to talk to my dad about anything, because the specter of Trump hands over every conversation we have.

Like Kupperman’s dad, mine is also ill. But unlike Joel, my dad was as attentive a father as anyone could ask for, and his illness isn’t one of his mind, but of his body. But that phrase struck me right in the gut, and I instantly understood Kupperman’s life in a way I hadn’t before, even though it came towards the end of the book.

Since my dad got sick, I’ve put all the Trump bullshit aside and been there for my dad, and it has been a real healing in my life. Reading the end of this book, I kept waiting for Joel to give Michael something to grasp onto, an opportunity for a connection or a similar moment of healing.

But that never happens.

Joel continues to retreat into himself, and while Michael begins to understand his father a little more, there is no movie-style ending of embrace and tears. There’s just a slow decay, echoing full of unanswered questions.