Home After Dark

Home After Dark by David Small

This book does have themes of violence, abusive situations, homophobia, suicide, and racism. If any of those themes make you uncomfortable, I would not recommend reading this book. Especially as this is a comic book, the visual depictions may be more troubling.

An amazon summary, "Wildly kaleidoscopic and furiously cinematic, Home After Dark is a literary tour-de-force that renders the brutality of adolescence in the so-called nostalgic 1950s, evoking such classics as The Lord of the Flies. Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to sun-splashed California in search of a dream. Suddenly forced to fend for himself, Russell struggles to survive in Marshfield, a dilapidated town haunted by a sadistic animal killer and a ring of malicious boys who bully Russell for being “queer.” Rescued from his booze-swilling father by Wen and Jian Mah, a Chinese immigrant couple who long for a child, Russell betrays their generosity by running away with their restaurant’s proceeds. Told almost entirely through thousands of spliced images, once again “employ[ing] angled shots and silent montages worthy of Alfred Hitchcock” (Washington Post, on Stitches), Home After Dark becomes a new form of literature in this shocking graphic interpretation of cinema verité." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

The prologue starts with a silent scene of Christmas where Russell's parents are fighting and his mom leaves with his Dad's best friend. The Dad decides to sell the house and move out to California. They were originally going to stay with Russell's Aunt until Russell's Dad can find a job...but the Aunt isn't really having any of it. They drive to San Francisco and find a room for rent from an older chinese couple. Then Russell slowly but surely starts getting more and more involved with the town. There's also a really creepy element of animals being murdered in gruesome ways and left in various parts of the town. Again, as a graphic novel, this is depicted.

...and that's enough summary.

I will say, due to the narrator, era, subject matter covered; I found it really hard to relate to this book. I thought a lot of it was more a study on humanity to slowly depict the different experiences that Russell goes through that define him as a person, and also to show just how strange people are.

However, I don't think Russell had enough of a voice.

We get to see Russell experiencing all of those harrowing, unusual, weird, but also kind moments... without a lot of reactions from Russell. There are facial expressions that give us some idea of what might be transpiring in Russell's mind... but for the most part, I wanted to see more of Russell's voice. I wanted his actions, his voice, and well more of him! I don't want to believe someone would experience everything Russell went through without really processing. It kind of seemed to be like silent processing, absorbing the world, without really giving it a reaction. Almost like he's a sponge.

There is a point where Russell does make decisions which lead to more interesting situations, but there also seems to be this unyielding innocence that is odd.

It was a neat read, but I just wanted more of Russell's voice.

Happy reading!