A striking celebration of cinema’s power and a chilling acknowledgment of its limitations.
The latest graphic novel from Burns follows a group of young white suburban friends, centering on the sputtering relationship between a warm, friendly redhead and the awkward artist making her the focus of his new story.
Brian would rather sit in the kitchen and draw tentacled aliens than join the party out in the front room. But when Jimmy, his longtime home-movie collaborator, casts Laurie, a new addition to their friend circle, in their next 8 mm film, Laurie’s warmth and beauty tempt Brian to step out of his mind and fully into the present. Brian’s art (ranging from the uncanny to the explicit) and the fleeting moments of connection between them keep Laurie in Brian’s orbit, and the story alternates between their perspectives, capturing both Laurie’s sense of isolation when Brian gets lost in his appreciation for and creation of movies and Brian’s bittersweet awareness of his drifting, ever-creating mind. As Brian attempts to translate the strange visions in his head (and sketchbook) into a science fiction film shot with friends at a secluded cabin, he sinks deeper into his cinematic escapism while Laurie engages with more immediate pleasures. An aura of horror infuses the pages, with bulbous aliens floating through blue skies and raining down mysterious capsules, dead-eyed stares and skipped medication setting nerves on edge, and time’s unyielding march robbing even pleasant moments of lasting significance. Burns’ clean lines, heavy shadows, and rich colors sumptuously convey the pebbled texture of alien flesh and the rolling waves of Laurie’s hair, while his dialogue and narration crisply capture everything from flirty, friendly banter to awkward and painful self-analysis. His paneling swiftly moves the story along, through both slice-of-life moments and fantastical worlds, occasionally juxtaposing character moments with shots from the films Brian loses himself in, evoking the massive gap between fixation and passion.
A striking celebration of cinema’s power and a chilling acknowledgment of its limitations.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780593701706
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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