Big and stylish—of particular interest to those dealing with epilepsy or wanting to know more about the condition.
Artist, illustrator, and game designer Ata presents the story of a college student struggling with epilepsy while trying to live a normal life.
It’s been five years since the first seizure, and life isn’t getting any easier for Isaac. His frazzled, fragile state has him missing school while classmates spread rumors that he’s on drugs. In fact, he is on drugs—pills to battle his epilepsy. Isaac is painfully aware of his illness and its triggers (lack of sleep, intense physical and emotional stress, and even anxiety about epilepsy), but unfortunately, most of the people around him (roommates, teachers, doctors, family) underplay the severity of his condition. Frustrated by the limitations his illness imposes on him, Isaac pushes himself to enjoy something close to a normal life—going to parties and drinking with friends—which eventually leads to a violent seizure that lands him in the hospital. But the injury also earns the attention of friend-of-a-friend Jo, who feels an intense sympathy for Isaac’s plight. But will even Jo’s efforts be enough to help Isaac push through the daily agony of his condition? Ata renders the story in a vibrant manga style, most strikingly depicting Isaac’s seizures as a swarm of floating daggers, each blade bearing a single eye and trailing a long string of beads, the weapons encircling Isaac in hypnotizing patterns before slicing him to shreds. The details of Isaac’s illness feel decidedly lived-in, and Isaac’s exhaustion with the struggle required to live his life is palpably, dramatically realized. But while the specifics of the story are compellingly unique (if occasionally flirting with opacity), the arc feels overly familiar. Nevertheless, the spotlight shone on an underrepresented demographic is commendable.
Big and stylish—of particular interest to those dealing with epilepsy or wanting to know more about the condition.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6210-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A gently assured, low-key pastoral of lost souls who find, in banal evil and thwarted altruism, the inspiration for human...
Delightful debut novel about American innocents abroad (“a thief and two Peace Corps volunteers”) and the Guatemalans whose lives they inevitably change.
Ed and Rachel joined the Peace Corps to do good, but now they can’t quite make contact with the people they’re supposed to help. They’ve become lovers, know each other so well they almost don’t have to talk, and have great sex; things, in short, have become so easy between them that neither is quite sure that the relationship will last. Carlton, meanwhile, is a gloomy professional thief who left New York because he was just too good at robbing people and wasn’t sure what he thought about his bisexuality. Able to support himself in luxury anywhere in the world, he stopped wandering when he found a beautiful lakeside villa in the small Guatemalan town of Panajachel, where he now tries—unsuccessfully—to stop stealing. When Rosario, the beautiful native Indian woman who cleans his villa, discovers the source of his wealth, Carlton makes her his partner in crime. Living in the same town is Ramiro, a native Indian farmer who quit his job as detective because he disliked working for the perversely brutal Hispanic police who he felt were exploiting other Indians (now, he’s learning English from Ed). When Carlton cleans out the sleeping Ed and Rachel, Ramiro dusts off his detective skills but wonders whether he suspects Rosario because of anti-Indian prejudices he acquired from his former cops, or whether she’s truly involved with the thief. As his characters cross paths, former Peace Corpsman Brazaitis, whose The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala (not reviewed) won the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Prize, wisely lets them meander through their loneliness and frustrations while feelings of alienation and uncertainty gradually change into mutual respect, gender-bending love, and selfless sacrifice.
A gently assured, low-key pastoral of lost souls who find, in banal evil and thwarted altruism, the inspiration for human kindness.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-9657639-8-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Lively and well-written, but not persuasive: Annie’s too obviously bad to be credible as a truly wicked woman.
A debut about fathers and children that should be affecting but, instead, is a breezy tale of a good guy outwitting a nasty, scheming woman who wants to keep everything for herself, including his son.
While he takes a DNA test and waits for the results that will prove whether he’s the father of four-year old Todd, narrator Gil Wexler recalls how he met, married, and then divorced Annie White. Gil, a photographer, was a 30-ish widower with three children—Allegra, Jack, and Wolfie—when a friend introduced him to Annie. Annie was recently separated, but after her divorce, as the new relationship intensified, soon moved into the house. At first the children liked her; then they began to resent her bossiness. When she became pregnant, though, Gil went ahead and married her anyway. Annie miscarried on their wedding day; then, determined to have a baby, was soon pregnant with Todd. After Todd’s birth, Annie, once seemingly sweet and giving, became moody, manipulative, and grasping. She insisted that Gil buy her a condo, where she and Todd could live apart from him and the other children. But when Annie claimed he demeaned her sexually and was suffocating her, Gil, by now tired of her demands and moods, decided he had no option but to divorce her. Which he does at some financial cost, but now, as Annie tries to prevent Gil seeing Todd, a sweet-natured boy whom he loves very much, Gil decides to fight back. And with the assistance of an unlikely lawyer, the grossly overweight Mormon F. Applebee, and with some extremely damning entries in an old journal kept by son Wolfie, Gil is ready to challenge Annie for the sake of Todd.
Lively and well-written, but not persuasive: Annie’s too obviously bad to be credible as a truly wicked woman.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-57962-067-1
Page Count: 207
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
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