NovelWorld

Easily the most thrilling, gorgeous, complex and satisfying new graphic novel in years comes from Israel, written and illustrated by a woman whose storytelling skills and ability to capture emotional nuances in her characters are right up there at the top, on an equal with Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel, the two reigning goddesses of graphic storytelling.

The story is a grabber, and unfolds expertly. A woman serving her military duty tells our appealing hero, Koby, a young taxi-cab driver in Tel-Aviv, that she has good reason to think his estranged father was blown up in a recent bombing. (Let me mention right now that the entire novel, hinged on terrorist activity, contains not a single anti-Palestinian comment. The lack of hatred and blame in Modan’s world is part of the compassion that plays throughout the story.)

How she convinces Koby to help her find out what happened to his father, and what they discover, is Chinese boxes-within-boxes of secrets and lies. It’s a mystery, all right, and a superb one, full of false conclusions and theory-breakers wrecking each of your theories. It’s got two central characters who are both so likeable and complex – and constantly fighting – that they’re straight out of classic comedy, except that they feel utterly real and you ache for their confusion, played out against the tortured backdrop of Tel Aviv, a city constantly taking the lives of its own citizens in explosive bloodbaths.

Modan works in big, bold colors, wisely knows what to show instead of tell, and generates a sense of perpetual surprise, of rugs constantly being jerked out from under you. The volume is visually rich, handsomely produced by Drawn and Quarterly in Montreal, utterly unsentimental in tone, witty and heartbreaking and humane, with a jim-dandy ending.

Graphic novel doubters, here’s the one that will break your resistance.

(As originally posted on Shelf-Awareness.com)