Mercury

The new graphic novel by Hope Larson, which is probably going to end up as my comic of the year. Two stories in parallel, with rather wonderful transitions between them, my fave being the switch from a hand clutching a tree branch to a hockey stick hitting a ball. Which rather nicely encapsulates the point of the book as a whole -- past mistakes / frustrations being corrected / resolved in the present. The most beautiful moment for me was when the crow (the cursed spirit of Asa) accuses Tara of being "a vindictive little girl", thinking she is her ancestor Josey, who incriminated him for murder and theft. But Tara is nothing of the sort. She asks only to help. And with that act of goodwill, Asa's spirit is purged.

This isn't karma across generations, which is the rather uncomfortable reading I first settled on. Rather, it is simply the present righting the wrongs of the past. And what spurs this transformation is the strong sense of the family as being rooted in a particular landscape, and the need to keep it that way. This is the other big theme of the book, and perhaps the most moving one.