The Lethe

(as of February 2024[Man, it’s crazy what can happen in a year. Not to mention the criminal omissions even at the time. I’ll have to update this soon])

Prefacing this, it’s pretty interesting how I generally don’t actually actively seek out queer content. I guess I’ve always been reticent to being defined by it in any real way? Regardless, I obviously still take a general interest in a lot of queer artists, just never really through the lens of representation? It’s a whole thing. That being said. A lot of these stories are queer. They are also very sad. There’s a song I really love called “Somewhere Without Me” by Alien Boy. The band once toured with a banner behind them saying “Dreams and Queer Feeling”. I think about that mantra a lot in the context of a lot of these. I also think about the concepts behind tragedy. What it means to read and explore it. Some say it’s a way to conceptualise and understand these concepts while placing ourselves in a distanced position so as to be in a less vulnerable, though no less raw, allowing for catharsis. There is, of course, also the concept that sadness is a compelling, relatable feeling. Just naturally. Conflict is intriguing and conflict is sad. Often. I think that there’s also something to be said about how when narratives are projected onto our lives, it is the sadness within it that we look to for a place. Not meaning per se, simply that we find no need to place happiness without surrounding context. Conversely, we are always locating sadness, its causes, its effects, its presence. Like a blank jigsaw puzzle. There’s no “meaning” behind why a piece is where it is – I don’t believe in “everything has a meaning” nor am I religious – yet we may seek where it “belongs” to construct a greater whole. A better understanding. Anyways, all this to say I like sad stuff 

Tldr: These books are sad and gay and there’s some complex reasons for that, probably

Here’s my top five favourite graphic novels of all time, in order (I excluded series and comics to save myself some heartache [number 3 will make you shit yourself]):

5. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me (CW if you read the book: Abortion, Toxic romantic relationships, SA)

A wonderful coming of age story, exploring the concepts of toxic relationships and the ‘caretaker’ role of some young peoples’ experiences. It’s a simple story. One that’s not trying to be magnificent. It’s not an indie rocker teenage story (which I also love, you’ll see), instead it’s fantastically mundane. Preppy. Nerdy. Simple. It’s never the end of the world. It just hurts. It’s also a very funny and very sweet story. A story of learning to love yourself. Then you can love the people in your life just as well. The focus for me within this story is just the ethereality of media-portrayed highschool splayed out against the materiality of highscool angst. A fucking brilliant expression of the purest senses of coming-of-age as a concept.

4. It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth (CWIYRTB: SH, Su. Idea., Depression, Horrific Imagery)

This one’s a weird one. Zoe Thorogood, the author, calls it an ‘autobiographic novel’, which is very fun. It tells the story of how, after a particularly close call with her mental health (I’m sure you get the idea), she decides to go on an adventure: Craft a story of her life in order to progress and elevate her character. Then, covid hits. That goes about as well as you expect. With how it began, I expected to dislike it. I actually dropped it for a while. It represented itself as bearing a philosophy around depression that felt very “old me”; archaic and unhealthy. And, considering she was writing it as she went, it probably was. But it slowly develops, unfolds, grows, as with the author’s own health. It uses multimedia, surrealism, beautiful BEAUTIFUL panels to communicate all of this. But what I most want to talk about it this one particular moment where she clears a couple pages of black space for you. It tells you to consider your own life, not through your own lens, but through the voice of the book. And that made me stop. And pull out a pen. And draw my life. Not in context of itself; myself – rather in the context of her story. That was pretty fucking cool.

3. Don’t Go Without Me (CWIYRTB: Horrific imagery, Death)

An anthology series. Three stories. Each explores a unique aspect of romance and life. The first asks what it means to love someone, so deeply, to the degree of self-destruction. It asks what it means to learn to love again. All captured through excellent gothic eldritch imagery. The second story explores the weight of emotion, of unrequited love. The materiality of these unreal concepts. Dreams make us feel. What does that mean for the ‘realness’ of dreams? What’s the difference between real and unreal? In writing, there is none. Not even a material one. Emotions are allowed to become manifest as real objects within the characters’ lives. It’s one of the loneliest stories I’ve ever read. The final story turns to the reader. Demonstrates their humanity. Inquires into it. Then poses a challenge. It asks what you will do when you’re done with the story. Weep. Openly. In a Pret a Manger. Is what I did. But that also probably has to do with how I was feeling at the time. The book unmoors you, then pulls you back for a suffocating hug, then allows for a deep breath. That’s how I left this book feeling: Refreshed.

2. Forest Hills Bootleg Society (CWIYRTB: EDs, Porn(???), mentions of Death, Grief, SA)
Conversely, this book made me feel like I had walked through cement. It starts off fun enough. It’s a quirky story about a group of girls in a boarding school getting a bootleg dvd of a hentai show, which they then decide to make a bunch of copies of and get rich selling them to the boys at their school. It’s a fantastic premise. It is also. The SADDEST. STORY. I’VE EVER. READ. It’s obviously a coming of age story. But it explores the nooks and crannies of “growth” that are hard to stomach. Not all growth is good. Not all of it comes in good ways. People get where they’re going and the rhyme or reason of that is not necessarily as important as the people themselves. People have dreams, insecurities, emotions and this book makes you feel every inch of that rusty knife as those three things collide. Except even that’s wrong. It’s not a stab. It’s just a slow addition of pressure. It sucks in the best way. This, unlike the other stories, is not one of catharsis. I think that’s really important about it. It’s also incredibly good at exploring the casual sombre undertones of smalltown America. The book will have these moments where it does little labels for people and places. Like,
“This is Jimmy Diggs, he is insecure about his dick size” etc. There’s a spread of the whole town that falls fairly early on in the story that really set the tone for me. It labelled mundane things: “A celebrity used to live here”, “this used to be a minimart”, “three car accidents happened on this same corner last year”. Then,
“Catherine Holling’s House,
her daughter Erika passed not too long ago,
the neighbours still leave casseroles on the front porch,
Catherine wishes they wouldn’t…”
Yeah.

1. Are You Listening? (CW: SA, Death, Grief)

I want to STUDY this book. I cannot tell you how much I fucking loved this. It was a religious experience reading it. I genuinely feel so ill-equipped to proselytise it because I believe it deserves so much more. But I’ll give it my best go. This is a road trip story (so instantly great) about a person who needs to get away from their job and home after their mother dies. On their way away, they run into someone who is running away from home. We don’t know why. It’s by Tillie Walden, one of the biggest and most important graphic novelists right now. She has a habit of exploring two things primarily. 1) Metaphysical Space. 2) Queerness.

The way she portrays liminal spaces, transitory spaces, as ‘landscapes of thought’ is on par with FUCKING PERCY SHELLEY HIMSELF. Mont Blanc WHO????? She maps characters and the spaces of their mind onto the pages, spilling over panels and constructing backgrounds in themselves. Kaleidoscopes of colours on top of twisting, messy settings create the greatest magical realist expressions I’ve ever seen. She captures the feeling of driving through a tunnel so viscerally through flat image, better than even a real ass video, that I feel INSANE. I want to BITE into a STICK. Then, for queerness, her ability to manipulate perspective, dialogue and camera angle is so subtle and delicious that it had me conceptualising and philosophising without me even realising what was happening. Through the book, I started to consider the idea of how gender, as a performance, at least in the English language, need not exist in intimacy. Gendered pronouns need only be used in third person reference, and when conceptualising people one-on-one, we tend not to ever need to approach the concept of gender, only their essence, only them. This is then revealed to be foreshadowing for the characters themselves, and why gender is central to their internal conflict! All without it feeling as if the narrative has lifted a fucking finger. It’s just so masterfully woven that you wake up, your kidneys are gone and you’re sitting there reeling from what a fantastic story you’ve just read. Holy shit what a good book. What a great book. What a significant book. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. My lord.

Ultimately, all of these books are good enough for me to write a whole article on in themselves. Maybe I will one day. But in the interest of not spoiling them for anyone I recommend to, as well as to not write 5 dissertations, I’ll leave it at this. Stories are magical. And important. And These books are the perfect picture of that.