This is a situation that may be familiar to all of us. A young couple, but in which cracks and difficulties are perceived. Connie and Will return sulking from a road trip. There has been, for a minor reason, a bitter argument between the two. But when they get home, when they are reunited with their common environment (and their cat), they make peace. To seal it definitively or provisionally, they plan to watch a movie together. Connie goes out to buy some snacks, while Will does a few household chores: sweeping, washing dishes, etc. When he finishes, he begins to read a book that he is halfway through (this is a resource of narrative counterpoint that is powerfully reminiscent of the novel “Three nights” by Austin Wright, superbly adapted by Tom Ford in his 2016 film “Nocturnal animals”). The story stars another couple, Daniel and Claire, who to escape the memory of a recent domestic tragedy, decide to take a cruise trip… which will be, without a doubt, the worst decision of their lives. Reading affects Will, it disturbs him, like a kind of distorting mirror of his life. That unleashes what we could define as “the hell of the imagination.”
The minutes pass slowly, as they always do when we are nervous. He has just received two pretty horrible news: his mother’s dog has died, as well as a cousin who suffered from leukemia. Remember the old saying: there are never two misfortunes without a third. Her mind is filled with gruesome sequences in which Connie never returns after being mugged by a homeless man or hit by a drunk driver. In fact, he comes to see himself completely undone, overwhelmed by regret, having lost her forever. His anxiety devours him: isn’t Connie taking too long to return? However, there is nothing to worry about, because between what happens in one’s head and what happens in reality there is always a great distance, right?
This graphic novel by the American Jordan Crane It has considerable virtues: a cartoonish drawing, but clear and precise; simple and credible dialogues; and, above all, a tense narrative in which a most mundane and common circumstance becomes progressively distressing and paranoid. Perhaps the only thing that can be criticized is that the monochrome green that invades the entire comic, although justified by the wonderful final dream scene, can become somewhat heavy after a few dozen pages and perhaps it would have been a good idea to keep the white and black with which it was originally published in installments. But it is a minor reproach to an excellent work.