![]() ![]() ![]() But though Nick’s arc toward authenticity is well rendered, it’s too easily won, with a world willing to accommodate him the second he opens up and a convenient manic-pixie love interest. The narrative takes an unexpected turn when Nick suddenly decides to say something personal in a glorious scene that mixes the rapturous (a montage of fantastical lush color frames in this cool and restrained black-and-white book) with the comical (the man he’s connecting with is his plumber). Even a joyful-seeming one-night stand with brash young doctor Wren is drawn in a one-page vignette as a kind of theater (with curtains and stage) to demonstrate Nick’s disconnection (“I didn’t feel anything and performed every emotion”). He compensates with personas, such as posing as a sad young artist sketching women on the train (until he discovers they find it creepy rather than cute). Forster, New Yorker cartoonist McPhail’s graphic novel debut comes across as a book-length illustrated version of the Howard’s End epigraph: “Only connect!” Nick is an artist whose cringey awkwardness and roiling inner monologues (“Is this what human interaction is?”) block him from forming relationships. ![]()
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