A spectacular and inspired graphic memoir that traces the many threads of a remarkable root.
A noted graphic novelist explores the complex story of ginseng, the medicinal root with an oddly humanlike shape.
Ginseng is “prized in Chinese medicine,” Thompson writes, but it is also grown in the perhaps unlikely confines of rural Wisconsin, where he grew up. Put to work harvesting ginseng as a child, Thompson recounts, he dreamed of doing something different, “the fantasy of a career path that could transcend our economic class.” That “different” path involved writing comic books and, in time, graphic novels, rejecting his parents’ fundamentalist Christianity and forsaking the countryside for downtown Portland, Oregon. Yet, for all the slugs and mosquitoes, the scorching heat and freezing cold, and the endless labor of harvesting the stuff, Thompson, now approaching 50, chose ginseng as the avenue by which to write of his life, with its nagging working-class guilt that “what I do isn’t real work.” But it is: Writing about ginseng itself takes him into the lives of others, from Hmong refugees in California (and from there the Midwest, and now to Oklahoma to grow legal marijuana), to farmers and agronomists in China and Taiwan. He’s learned much in his travels, as when a back-to-the-lander tells him that a ginseng monoculture is as harmful as any other single-crop agriculture, defeated by companion planting: “The forest, like the human body, is not simply an assemblage of parts, but an open system in communication with itself.” He returns, too, to Wisconsin, with a newfound respect for his parents’ hard lives, even as they respect his choices. Thompson’s closing is poignant and memorable, enshrining the recognition that all the labor of ginseng is a Sisyphean one, since “the value is in what’s left behind in the gouged out earth.”
A spectacular and inspired graphic memoir that traces the many threads of a remarkable root.Pub Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780593700778
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.
Immersion journalism in the form of a graphic narrative following a Syrian family on their immigration to America.
Originally published as a 22-part series in the New York Times that garnered a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the story of the Aldabaan family—first in exile in Jordan and then in New Haven, Connecticut—holds together well as a full-length book. Halpern and Sloan, who spent more than three years with the Aldabaans, movingly explore the family’s significant obstacles, paying special attention to teenage son Naji, whose desire for the ideal of the American dream was the strongest. While not minimizing the harshness of the repression that led them to journey to the U.S.—or the challenges they encountered after they arrived—the focus on the day-by-day adjustment of a typical teenager makes the narrative refreshingly tangible and free of political polemic. Still, the family arrived at New York’s JFK airport during extraordinarily political times: Nov. 8, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was elected. The plan had been for the entire extended family to move, but some had traveled while others awaited approval, a process that was hampered by Trump’s travel ban. The Aldabaans encountered the daunting odds that many immigrants face: find shelter and employment, become self-sustaining quickly, learn English, and adjust to a new culture and climate (Naji learned to shovel snow, which he had never seen). They also received anonymous death threats, and Naji wanted to buy a gun for protection. He asked himself, “Was this the great future you were talking about back in Jordan?” Yet with the assistance of selfless volunteers and a community of fellow immigrants, the Aldabaans persevered. The epilogue provides explanatory context and where-are-they-now accounts, and Sloan’s streamlined, uncluttered illustrations nicely complement the text, consistently emphasizing the humanity of each person.
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30559-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
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