Epileptic: Volume 1 - David B.
First published in French and now translated into English, Epileptic is the story of a family struggling to control one son's seizures, told from the point of view of his younger brother. The book reminded me somewhat of Art Spiegelman's Maus (I'm sure I'm not the first one to make that connection), both because it is autobiographical, mixing past and present (with himself discussing the book with his parents) and because images of war are an essential part of the story. To David, life is a battle, the world is full of ghosts and monsters, but he feels there is more to fear from adults than the bogeymen that populate his childhood. His brother's epilepsy is portrayed as some sort of Aztec-looking lizard, sometimes tangling up his body, and sometimes overpowering the entire family. His family plunges into the world of macrobiotics, which is hailed as the way to cure all ills, and they move from one leader to the next. It's a fascinating tale and beautifully illustrated, tragic as it is. This is the first of two volumes; I eagerly await the second.
Fed to jonathan's brain | June 24, 2003
