I received an email about a book festival in Green Bay to be held this Spring or Summer. Some neat names were listed and I saw Radtke posted with the headliners. With a name like Radtke I figured she must be from Wisconsin. I looked her up, read through her webpage, and saw she linked to an article entitled, "Comic Stripped: 17 sex scenes in graphic novels" in her web page's News section. "Alright!" I thought.
Well, I should have paid more attention because Radtke wrote the article. This book has no sex scenes. The good news is that I really like Radtke's illustrations. The entire book is black and white with sharp lines and a not-quite-photo-realistic style. The book made a few "best of the year" lists but the story itself did not engage me.
Radtke writes about her uncle who dies young from a congenital - and hereditary - heart defect. Her uncle's death hits her harder than expected and she worries for and ignores her own health and mortality. There is a failed engagement with a college boyfriend, loneliness at a nanny job in Italy and in a professional job in Kentucky. A fascination with abandoned buildings and towns. Grad school in Iowa City. Details of the Peshtigo Fire of 1871. How the Peshtigo fire was studied to plan the fire bombings of WWII. Reference to the mass sheep kill near Dugway Proving Ground in Utah (of which I just heard a discussion of on a radio show). Visits to former residents of an abandoned Colorado mining town. A village in Iceland is overrun by lava. Radtke classifies her grad school boyfriends by the cigarette brands they smoked.
I don't think much happens in the story. The story is about Radtke growing up in her 20s and not much of the tale drew me in. Maybe I need to be a 30-year-old female to understand what is going on.
Comments:
1. Radtke seems to have grown up in Green Bay.
2. Gratuitous Packers reference.
3. I enjoyed the artwork.
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