An acerbic body of stories parsing memories both real and imagined.
Alaniz presents a hybrid collection of autofictional short stories and comics that examines the Chicano experience throughout time.
“These stories are also all in one way or another true and in one way or another made up,” writes the author in his foreword; “like all writing.” The book is split into two sections, one in prose, the other in comics form. Alaniz plays with the blurred line between fiction and memoir, sometimes repeating stories in the two modes. The prose section addresses the concept of time, as indicated by each story title containing a year (“Sandías 1918”; “The Last Time 1994”); occasionally narrators switch between first and third person, and sometimes the perspectives are layered within the stories. Most of the narratives are constrained to the geography of the border area of southern Texas—the Rio Grande Valley—which lends many of the stories a sense of incomplete transition, hovering between opposing ideas, realizations, and concrete emotions. While there are some surreal elements at play, and even a Bradbury-inspired foray into space with a story set in the 2060s on Mars, most concern themselves with accessible themes of the malaise and gratifications of town life, viewed through the author’s personal Chicano lens. Characters include a baby born during a hurricane, a person dying from an accidental gun wound, a grandfather who can never quite reconcile how his trauma has shaped him, and a father dying while his son lives on the other side of the world; each is tinged with what the author calls a “sense of self-reliance…disinclination to get too dependent on anybody for anything.” The comics are less morose in general, but more gruesome, relaying serious injuries, losing a new puppy, and a garage fire, among other visceral vignettes.
It’s obvious (and stated outright) that Alaniz has mined his memories for threads to weave into the fabric of these stories. Some of the pieces are very effective, including the opening story, “Genoveva 2010/1924,” in which the narrator recounts the moralistic parables his grandfather constantly reiterates; the one with the most nuance is the story of the older man’s fractured childhood: “my 90-year-old grandfather’s tears streamed down his face, the face of the six-year-old he was, always would be.” Other standouts include “Tamales 2063,” in which the many horrors of life experienced as a migrant on Earth still cling to settlers on Mars, and “Faccia Prima 1997,” an erotic abstraction about identity, sound, and action that defies definition. All of the stories make use, to varying degrees, of “Spanglish,” and the text doesn’t always provide translation. The comics section, with stories about watermelon harvests and being bitten by a dog, treads some familiar territory, but these entries feel much more confessional in their immediacy as they visualize the stories’ more cerebral moments; rather than functioning as detached observers, the speakers of Alaniz’s comics must be visible, tangible. Though the comic illustrations by the author are, for the most part, not very intricate, they add a dark humor to these anecdotes. These stories appear to occupy different dimensions within the same place, but they all offer insights into universal human emotions.
An acerbic body of stories parsing memories both real and imagined.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781953447685
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Flowersong Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A cartoonist’s gentle and charming epistolary memoir.
A cartoonist uses fans’ questions to trace his personal history.
Tomine began self-publishing his work at the age of 16. Since then, he’s developed a devoted fandom that, he says, has stuck by him for almost three decades. Although cartooning is a solitary profession, Tomine says his relationship with his readers has helped him stave off the loneliness that is, so often, a hazard of the job. He writes, “It’s never felt that way. In fact, I often think of my career as a decades-long conversation between myself and an amorphous, mostly anonymous group of people who are for some reason drawn to my work.” In Q&A, Tomine continues this conversation by responding to some of the most common queries, which include how to correctly pronounce his name (which, it turns out, Tomine didn’t know until a trip to Japan), his favorite brands of art supplies, his ability to balance the inspirations and frustrations of parents, and his thoughts about adapting his comics into films. He also offers career advice, describing how he got his start at theNew Yorker, spelling out his opinions on self-publishing and marketing, and providing ideas for connecting with comic artists who could serve as role models or mentors. Although this memoir doesn’t necessarily contain a clear character arc, it does provide a fascinating insight into a beloved artist’s personal history. Tomine’s writing is compassionate, empathetic, and tongue-in-cheek, and his narratorial voice has the intimate, confessional frankness of a good friend. The book’s visuals—which include Tomine’s illustrations—are a welcome addition to the text.
A cartoonist’s gentle and charming epistolary memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781770467309
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A problematic but powerful Holocaust survival memoir.
Mother and daughter go on the run in Nazi-occupied Hungary, then endure the Russian occupation.
It would be difficult to conceive of Katin’s debut as anything but a graphic novel, given the strength of its visuals, but a straight-text approach might have been wiser. Her story is obviously dramatic. In Budapest circa 1944, when Miriam is a young girl, her mother, Esther, decides to avoid the impending Nazi roundup of Jews by faking their deaths and escaping to the countryside with forged papers. But things hardly improve outside the city, where villagers treat them no better in their new identities, taking their dark features to mean they’re gypsies. To make matters worse, a Nazi officer quickly figures out the Katins’ secret and uses it as a means of prying sexual favors from Esther. Hard circumstances turn desperate once the Red Army sweeps through, exhibiting the morals of drunken Vikings; Esther joins the starving, freezing villagers as they take clothes off soldiers’ corpses. She does her best to conceal all these horrific events from little Miriam, though the best she can manage is to induce a sort of baffled confusion. Katin’s episodic approach conveys events with an admirable economy at times, but often just hurries the reader through situations that could have used more explanation or context. The artwork’s smeared, sketchy quality contributes to this sense of undue haste. It may be that Katin chose the graphic form because of her background (she was a graphic artist in Israel and a background designer for Disney and MTV) rather than because it was the best vehicle for her story. However, the author’s pain is difficult to ignore, regardless of the limitations of her approach and her sometimes melodramatic tone.
A problematic but powerful Holocaust survival memoir.Pub Date: May 30, 2006
ISBN: 1-896597-20-3
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
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