PITCH BLACK

A white, female artist looking at subway posters meets an African-American man, and they strike up a conversation about life and art as they ride the subway up and down the line. He tells her the story of his life: He was given up for adoption as a baby, but his adopted family didn’t want him and he found himself on the streets, which, although harsh, were preferable to the shelters. “That is where the real pain started. People died there every day. And every day they came back.” Sleeping on subways lasted until the cops chased him into the tunnels, where he found a whole new way of life. Muralist and book artist Landowne met Horton shortly after the release of her 2004 picture book Selavi; the two collaborate here to bring Horton’s story of perseverance and hope to print, and the fluid black-and-white sequential panels tell it well. The horrors attendant on homelessness are not sugarcoated, and the language is as raw and gritty as one might expect. Powerful. (Graphic memoir. YA)