If I had to describe Adrian Tomine to someone who didn't know his work, I would call him – I can't possibly conjure any higher praise – the Alice Munro of comics.
--Rachel Cooke, The Guardian
Adrian Tomine released this collection in 2015. A New York Times bestseller, its six stories reveal key moments and revelations in the lives of ordinary people. Most of these do not end well. The title story, in particular, will quietly break your heart.
Art and dialogue work together; each panel, haiku-like, captures the essence of a moment. Unfortunately, the artwork may go underappreciated. The book has been packaged and sized to resemble a conventional novel. While the stories deserve that presentation, those standard novel dimensions result in undersized images.
That limitation aside, the book is excellent, and solidifies Tomine's place among the best graphic writers of the era. The stories consist of:
"A Brief History of the Art Form Known as 'Hortisculpture'": a man's devotion to his newly-discovered art form causes stress for his family. Tomine eschews his more realistic style here, for something that recalls, somewhat, Hergé's Tintin. It someone suits the world of a man creating bewilderingly strange art, with a revolutionary beauty only he seems to appreciate.
"Amber Sweet": A young woman's life experiences serious upheavals due to her resemblance to a porn star. Tomine does a remarkable job of conveying her paranoia as she senses people are talking behind her back, and drawing conclusions she cannot understand. The gossip and harassment affects her life profoundly. Then, after running away from one life, she encounters her doppelgänger, the infamous Amber Sweet.
"Go Owls": A woman trying to overcome addiction problems falls into a relationship with a troubled man. He apologizes after each incident of abuse. Readers know their life together won't end well, but may not anticipate how their relationship unravels.
"Translated from the Japanese": A woman and her child fly to California to reconnect with the child's father. We never see them; we learn about the characters through drawings of the things they see on their travels.
"Killing and Dying": An awkward, stammering teenager whose mother has cancer tries to become a comedienne. The story's actual focus is her father, and his reaction as his wife dies and his daughter fails to live up to her promise. Grieving people often do strange things.
"Intruders": In one of the best and perhaps most bizarre tales, an out-of-work military veteran recovers the key to his old apartment. He begins spending his days there, without the knowledge or permission of its current occupant. His actions lead to a violent confrontation when someone breaks into the place.
Each reader will react differently to the stories, of course. Make no mistake, however: this comic book has weight and depth. It presents plausible human characters and credible human pain.