I grabbed La Perdida (by Jessica Abel) when I saw it on the shelf at the library. It rang a bell (I later remembered that I own her book Drawing Words and Writing Pictures), but it turned out to be GREAT. It was so real that I thought it was autobiographical. It’s about a twenty-something Mexican-American girl, Carla Olivares, who travels to Mexico City to get in touch with her Mexican side. It’s neat how the book is split into two – in the beginning, Spanish is spoken and translated at the bottom of the panels; in the 2nd part, everything is assumed to be in Spanish but is said in English, with anything spoken in English in brackets. You really get to feel her lack of Spanish and how difficult communication was in the beginning and how she’s more comfortable as time goes on.
I found the story – or, really, Abel’s storytelling – to be mesmerizing. Abel is so adept that I really empathized with Carla, though part of it was being able to identify with the expat experience, which is still quite fresh in my mind. This is the first graphic novel I’ve read that I was totally sucked into like a great book – because it is a great book. I cannot recommend this highly enough.
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Persepolis was a recommendation by three of y’all and I found the story nothing short of riveting. It’s about the author’s experience growing up in Iran, mostly in the 80s. I can’t give any sort of critical review as the thought of it turns my mind to mush, so all I can say is that it was riveting. I’m fortunate to have read two exceptional graphic novels in a row and am extremely thankful for the recommendation.
I was, until this reading, almost completely ignorant of the recent history there, and Persepolis brought home what it was really about just like Maus does for the Holocaust. Watching a 60 minute documentary or reading an article does not capture what it was like for an individual or family to go through these horrors & upheavals. Perhaps it’s just me and my response to the medium of sequential arts – tv & movies are cool, but they don’t seem to dig themselves into my brain as much as a graphic novel.
Coincidentally I was just reading today about the outrage in communities at the possibility of a mosque coming to their neighborhood. I wonder if reading Persepolis can quell the fears that all mosques are magnets for terrorism.
