I loved the image of the two brothers skating on the river together as boys, leaning into one another, the affection and camaraderie of it. Lou Lebeuf is living in his memories, remembering his happy childhood and then the split that tore him and his brother apart, as deafness and dementia set in and he is moved from his farm house to a nursing home. All three volumes are sad to varying extents but I found this one the most powerful. Volume 2, Ghost Stories, made me cry more often than I like to admit. But when Ken finds out about their friendship, Lester realises there is something he does not know about his family’s history with Jimmy. Jimmy spends time with Lester and encourages his artistic efforts and imaginative play. The story follows Lester’s friendship with Jimmy, a former hockey player who, after a severe head injury, now works at the local gas station where Lester buys his comic books. Their silent meals around the dining room table broke my heart. The awkwardness between Lester and Ken is both sad and very realistic, neither one comfortable with the other, both still grieving for Claire, Lester’s mother, but unwilling or unable to share their pain with the other. Lester, sent to live with his Uncle Ken on the farm after his mother’s death from cancer, spends most of his time escaping into his super hero fantasies and reading (and attempting to draw his own) comic books.
Volume 1, Tales from the Farm, centers on young Lester Papineau. They are not cheerful stories but they are beautifully, if somberly, told. Set in the rural Southwestern Ontario farming community of Essex County, the book is a compilation of three inter-connected volumes, dealing with the personal stories of three of its residents. Honestly, that is not something I ever anticipated being able to say about a graphic novel but here you have it.
0 kommentar(er)
