"Caught my eye" is putting it mildly, says Lynn

When routinely shelving books on 2nd floor at the Lodo store, I came upon a thick tome that had a nearly mystical aura about it.  "What's this?... Hmmm, graphic novel...." I said to myself, noting the two characters framed so beautifully, at different ages, on both covers and the book's spine, and set it aside to look at later that morning.  During my break, I was too fascinated to eat (which is saying a lot) as I paged through, drawing by drawing, becoming enchanted by the storytelling, the characters, the setting... rapt in this adventure that drew me into both the author's and even into my own personal myths in what I can only describe as an alchemical journey.

The book opens with one of the main characters married off at age 9 to a scribe whose work she absorbs thirstily, finding in the cryptic language of scripture a source of personal salvation from the harsh demands of the world thrust upon her.  She soon finds herself alone and traumatized, her husband murdered, and amidst that chaos she takes on responsibility for another orphaned, low-caste waif whose soul proves to be powerfully, inextricably linked with her own. 

These Arabian Nights are not for children or for the sexually or politically squeamish.  But a vast world of reward awaits the reader who surrenders to navigating along with both main characters through an often painfully hostile world, brought to the brink of despair and annihilation through aggrieved separations that can only be survived, healed or transcended through the power of the most universal elements of love... decency... dignity... trust.  Craig Thompson has ornately imagined a setting that seethes, roars and soothes with an aliveness that shines brilliantly as the stars in the heavens of our own inner journeys.  Poetic, earthy, profoundly human, timeless and contemporary, this is a tale you will not soon forget.

--Lynn