Layers: 01/04/24

Layers by Pénélope Bagieu and Montana Kane (Translator) (2021), published in French originally as Les Strates is a memoir about life in and around Paris. It's a collection of 15 illustrated short scenarios.

I tend to like graphic novel memoirs. A couple of the author's fiction pieces were already on my wishlist, so I thought I'd give this one a read.

Her artwork is fine but the few scenarios I read just left me feeling off. There's a tonal misalignment between the the art and the text — an extremely off putting detachment.

For instance she talks about how she and her sister were given a pair of too young kittens who managed to survive into adulthood. Then the family goes on vacation and takes the cats along. They let the cats go and don't seem all that concerned when they don't come back immediately. Then when only the author's cat comes back and her sister's is heartbroken she doesn't seem to feel anything beyond smugness. Didn't she have any affection for either the missing cat or empathy for her heartbroken sister?

Shortly after there's a scenario where she and her boyfriend discover sex and she gets a UTI. Here she hasn't received even the most basic of sex education. She's lucky it's only a UTI given what they've been doing without any sort of protection. This part in her life is also just brushed aside with a shrug.

What I'm trying to say is, these scenarios are treated as nothing more than scenes to illustrate. There's no emotional ebb and flow to them. There's no sense on how any of these things led to personal growth.

One star

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