A bracing corrective to the more simpering extremes of the Janeite universe.
Inspired by a quilt Austen made, a British cartoonist pieces together the story of her life.
“We are making diamonds [the shape of quilt patches],” writes Evans, “formed from the hard facts we know of Jane Austen’s life.” Unlike Janine Barchas and Isabel Greenberg’s graphic biography published earlier this year (The Novel Life of Jane Austen), Evans’ tougher-minded portrait emphasizes the trials and disappointments she endured. She was born in 1775 to parents who had “a superfluity of children, and a want of almost everything else,” writes Evans, making apt use of Jane’s own words here and throughout. Austen’s brothers got what few advantages there were, and Edward, the fortunate heir of wealthy relatives, did little to help until his wife died and he invited his mother and sisters to care for his 11 children in exchange for a home in…his bailiff’s cottage. Shrewd, engaging accounts of Jane’s creation of her famous novels—consistently rejected until Sense and Sensibility appeared in 1811, just six years before her death—underscore how much wit and pleasure she gave the world from such unpromising circumstances. Jane and sister Cassandra are frequently glimpsed doing needlework and making clothes, reminding us of women’s historic connection with fabrics and paving the way for an “Interlude” that connects the trade in muslin, chintz, linen, and cotton to the colonial exploitation of workers in India and Ireland and enslaved people in the American South, as well as factory workers in England. Jane’s brothers, Frank and Henry, as members of the armed forces, protected these practices, but Evans notes that Jane deplored slavery: “Did Mr Darcy build Pemberley without income from West Indian investments?” The author’s point is to situate Austen more firmly in lived reality; Evans’ lively drawings similarly capture the past without prettifying it.
A bracing corrective to the more simpering extremes of the Janeite universe.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781804296226
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.
Immersion journalism in the form of a graphic narrative following a Syrian family on their immigration to America.
Originally published as a 22-part series in the New York Times that garnered a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the story of the Aldabaan family—first in exile in Jordan and then in New Haven, Connecticut—holds together well as a full-length book. Halpern and Sloan, who spent more than three years with the Aldabaans, movingly explore the family’s significant obstacles, paying special attention to teenage son Naji, whose desire for the ideal of the American dream was the strongest. While not minimizing the harshness of the repression that led them to journey to the U.S.—or the challenges they encountered after they arrived—the focus on the day-by-day adjustment of a typical teenager makes the narrative refreshingly tangible and free of political polemic. Still, the family arrived at New York’s JFK airport during extraordinarily political times: Nov. 8, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was elected. The plan had been for the entire extended family to move, but some had traveled while others awaited approval, a process that was hampered by Trump’s travel ban. The Aldabaans encountered the daunting odds that many immigrants face: find shelter and employment, become self-sustaining quickly, learn English, and adjust to a new culture and climate (Naji learned to shovel snow, which he had never seen). They also received anonymous death threats, and Naji wanted to buy a gun for protection. He asked himself, “Was this the great future you were talking about back in Jordan?” Yet with the assistance of selfless volunteers and a community of fellow immigrants, the Aldabaans persevered. The epilogue provides explanatory context and where-are-they-now accounts, and Sloan’s streamlined, uncluttered illustrations nicely complement the text, consistently emphasizing the humanity of each person.
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30559-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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