Illuminates a neglected but relevant part of history and subtly draws parallels to today’s water infrastructure crises.
In 1916 Cleveland, a risky tunnel construction project brings together a black inventor and laborers in this debut graphic novel.
Inventor Benjamin Beltran has just developed a helmet that allows people to breathe while surrounded by smoke, but no one will buy his product or let him run ads for it—because he’s black. Worse, the press won’t even cover his invention because, one journalist tells him, “our readers will never accept a negro as the ‘hero’ of a story.” Meanwhile, public outrage builds as a young boy contracts typhoid from the contaminated water piped in from Lake Erie. The mayor urges his waterworks chief to hasten the progress on the tunnel being dug under the lake in search of purer water. The laborers—Irish, German, and more—are given a few extra dollars to dig when the tunnels are filled with dangerous, combustible methane. One of these workers is Rodger Clarke, an Irishman who remembers clearly an incident 10 years ago when a crib, a construction structure in the lake, went up in flames, killing many of his friends in the tunnel and somehow sparing him. Then, one July night, history repeats itself: Clarke is in the tunnel when a deposit of methane is suddenly released, suffocating men and setting the crib aflame—and only Beltran, with his new invention, stands a chance of saving them. In a preface, MacGregor positions his timely historical novel about contaminated water as an ode to the common man and a meditation on the injustices of history (and an attempt to correct the record). Largely, he succeeds, with vivid characters; an engrossing, well-paced narrative; and a knack for evoking the racism and classism of the time. Dumm’s (co-illustrator: Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World, 2014) art tends toward the grotesque—the characters are all bulging eyes and thick lines, and it’s often difficult to tell who exactly is speaking because many of the players look similar. But scenes and landscapes are deftly rendered.” One of the narrative’s highlights is the earthy banter between the laborers that leavens the weighty topics in the book: When an unpopular character is pulled from the tunnel alive, there are boos and shouts of “throw ’im back!”
Illuminates a neglected but relevant part of history and subtly draws parallels to today’s water infrastructure crises.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61984-780-4
Page Count: 278
Publisher: EOI Media Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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