Author Archive
Dave Egger’s 1999 memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius chronicled his life while taking care of his younger brother Christopher “Toph” Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents. Eggers has since gone far beyond the personal narrative and into the chaotic world outside himself. In his 2006 book What Is The What (reviewed here by Lisa), Eggers tells the painful true-life account of a Sudanese war refugee who was a member of the Lost Boys of Sudan. He then went on to use the book’s profits to organize a human rights organization named after the book’s main character. Now, in his most recent book, Zeitoun, Eggers tells the story of Hurricane Katrina through the intimate lens of the Zeitoun family who are long time residents. And as with his last book, all proceeds from the book go the Zeitoun Foundation, a human rights organization that aids in the rebuilding of New Orleans.
In Zeitoun, Eggers introduces Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a middle-aged Syrian-American and the owner of a successful painting and contracting firm in New Orleans. His wife and business partner, Kathy, comes from a Southern Baptist family who later coverted to Islam after her first failed marriage. The Zeitouns have four children and live in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans. The story starts out two days before the storm arrives when the city is full of mounting tensions and residents are madly fleeing their homes. Kathy decides to leave with the children and go to Baton Rouge and later Phoenix while Zeitoun, as usual, decides to stay in the city to watch over their own home and other properties.
After a relatively standard post-storm Day 1, by Day 2 it is ominously clear to Zeitoun that the city’s levees have failed and the city is completely overrun with water. After saving what he could of his own family’s valuables, Zeitoun then takes to his 16-foot aluminum canoe and paddles around New Orleans witnessing the spectacle and saving elderly and dehydrated residents trapped in rotting, destroyed houses. Filled with an increasing sense of purpose, Zeitoun’s determination to save lives and help those less fortunate becomes more intense as the waters become more polluted and as the violence and chaos of the city deepens.
The book takes a turn when six armed officers show up at one of Zeitoun’s properties and take he and two others into custody for unclear reasons except possibly accused armed robbery. This then proceeds into a harrowing account of the government mistaking Zeitoun for a terrorist and subjecting him to a series of humiliations including full body searches, forced entrapment in a wire cage at makeshift Camp Greyhound, and finally being transferred to a real prison outside of New Orleans. And all the while, he is kept from making a call to his wife.
In telling this true account, Eggers’ style (much like in What Is The What) is amazingly simple and unadorned. There are no political soapboxes or rants whatsoever, just strictly a show-not-tell style of narrative that almost makes the reader believe he was simply transcribing word for word what the Zeitouns told him about their nightmarish experiences post- Hurricane Katrina. The results are poignant and disturbing and unabashedly clear.
November 20th, 2009
Kathleen - Monroe Street
After reading Gene Luen Yang’s award-winning graphic novel American Born Chinese and Derek Kirk Kim’s award-winning Same Difference & Other Stories this past spring, I was very excited to read The Eternal Smile: Three Stories The Eternal Smile is a collaborative effort published this year through First Second Books in which Yang contributed the text while Kim provided the illustrations. Together, these two create a work that is divided into three stories that involve fantasy worlds as an escape from the humdrum or painful reality of existence in some way or another. And very much like the stories within Yang’s American Born Chinese, each story has an unexpected twist that manages to give an entirely new dimension and meaning.
In the first story Duncan’s Kingdom, Duncan is a young knight who is out to win the hand of the beautiful princess by avenging her father’s death and obtaining the head of his killer, the Frog King. Through his relationship with Brother Patchwork, he obtains a sword and ends up successfully beheading the Frog King, thereby winning the hand of the beautiful princess. Yet during the ceremony, a bird flies overhead with the Frog King’s “Snappy Cola” in its talons and the entire story shifts to a completely different reality.
In The Eternal Smile, Grandpa Greenbax, a power hungry frog, is constantly in search of the profitable money making adventure in order to build up his “pool o’ cash”. Filbert, Grandpa Greenbax’s right hand man, at one point takes Grandpa Greenbax to the “eternal smile” floating in the clouds in the middle of the desert as a means of calming Greenbax down. Still, Grandpa Greenbax suddenly realizes that such a strange and mysterious spectacle is enough to build a religion on, and hence, a money making escapade indeed! However, after initial success, his plans go awry and he is thrown into a fit of uncontrollable rage. It is at this point that the story takes a totally unexpected turn, and everything the reader thinks about the world of Grandpa Greenbax is completely turned on its head.
In the final story Urgent Request, Janet, a frumpy drone at a tech company, answers a Nigerian scam e-mail to liven up her drab personal and professional life. She creates a fantasy relationship with Prince Henry Alembu, exchanging several emails and sending him almost her entire life savings. Finally, upon a final request from Henry, she requests that they meet, and this proceeds into a series of events that reveals that Janet is not as blatantly naïve as the reader thinks.
Along with Yang’s storytelling, Kim’s drawings for each story are executed in entirely different styles ranging from bright cartoonish figures to light watercolor panels, giving each story a special visual feel. I highly recommend this book to both graphic novel and non-graphic novel enthusiasts as an example of how unique this genre is becoming in terms of both subject matter and aesthetic value. Check it out!
September 10th, 2009
Kathleen - Monroe Street
After first being introduced to Lilli Carre through her short-animated films What Hits The Moon and For the Birds (you can view them on her website), I have had my eyes on this young Chicago artist. Easily identified by the graphic trademark of the black triangle inside each character’s nose, Carre’s work is garnering attention through her features in the MIME series as well as Best American Comics of 2008.
In 2006, Top Shelf Productions put out Carre’s Tales of Woodsman Pete, a collection of stories featuring the solitary, thoughtful Woodsman Pete and the giant, sexually frustrated Paul Bunyan and his companion Babe, the blue ox. The stories are hilarious and disturbing, including Paul Bunyan accidentally engulfing Ms. Woodson while engaged in a passionate kiss while Woodsman Pete conducts endless conversations with his stuffed moose heads.
Still, most are considering her recent book The Lagoon to be her official debut graphic novel. In this tale, a family of four- a grandfather, his daughter, her husband and their daughter- live in a house near a black lagoon where an amphibious creature sings a beautiful song on certain summer nights. This deeply seductive song awakens people out of their sleep and leads them to the lagoon where they listen to and watch the creature intently until the song’s end. The listeners then safely return to their perspective homes, except on the rare occasion when a listener mysteriously disappears into the dark waters forever.
Throughout the course of the story, each member of the family hears and reacts to the seductive sounds of the lagoon creature in different ways. Zoey, the young girl, thinks the song sounds like “a cat in a bathtub” but then later obsessively plays the tune over and over again on the piano. The grandfather, completely mesmerized by the song, is deeply entranced by the creature and found later by Zoey in the lagoon spewing out such nonsense as “Wet the felines. Only in July, when it’s hot.” Zoey’s mother, who has apparently formed an intimate friendship with the lagoon creature, whispers to him over a cigarette, “I want to hear it tonight!” and then later is discovered by her husband shoulder-deep in the lagoon and in danger of disappearing forever.
Along with the lagoon creature’s song, other sounds continuously creep in and out of Carre’s story. The “tap tap tap” on the window, a cat’s “plank” over the piano keys, a metronome’s “tic tic tic”, the “zzzz” of night insects, and the “crunch” and “rustle” of dry leaves and reeds all lingered in my head long after closing the book. And the fact that each reader must imagine his or her own unique versions of each of these sounds, including the creature’s seductive song, gives this graphic novel an expansive, rather mysterious quality. This together with the strange, obscure storyline keeps the reader constantly wondering what lies beneath such simple, spooky situations.
For the most part, I found the book’s ambiguity extremely tantalizing. Still, parts of the story felt unnecessarily abbreviated, and I yearned for more of Carre’s playful details and action. It is perhaps obvious that this is her first major graphic novel, and I think it is reasonable to hope that her storytelling will expand and improve over time. On the other hand, her rich black and white ink drawings seem perfectly realized, reminiscent of old German woodblock prints in their density of tone and their use of negative/positive space. And the overall tone of the drawings has an equally eery as well as playful quality, perfectly mirroring the quirky, yet haunted story line.
I’d venture to guess that Carre’s popularity will increase over the next decade. And if The Lagoon is any indication of her appreciation of sound, I also think it is a probable guess that her work will likely veer more towards animation and film. However, in the meanwhile, I recommend you check out this graphic novel and take advantage of the unique opportunity to attempt your very own spooky soundtrack to Carre’s rich artwork.
August 19th, 2009
Kathleen - Monroe Street