Let there be light amid the gloom
Too much darkness spoils this teenage tale, writes Martin Gray
Life’s hard and then you die – that’s the takeaway from David Small’s graphic novel, Home After Dark. Admittedly the protagonist doesn’t die here, but when he does, in whatever literary limbo characters are sent to after the reader is done with them, you can bet it’ll be a miserable demise, because this Fifties-set tale is one miserable read.
Our hero is Russell Pruitt, 13 when we meet him, just before his mother walks out on his father. His distant dad, Mike, decides to leave Ohio and take Russell to start a new life in San Francisco. Things go wrong immediately, as Mike finds the expected berth with his sister is no longer available. The two end up in the small town of Marshfield, which could be “Anywhere, USA,” we’re told – except there’s a spot of serial animal killing going on.
A kindly Chinese couple rent out a room to father and son, and things take a turn for the better. Mike gets a job teaching inmates at San Quentin prison, and soon they can afford a small place of their own. Then Russell starts school, and is bullied. Mike begins drinking and insults his son’s perceived lack of masculinity. Russell is befriended by the local outsider, but their friendship turns awkward after cash-strapped Russell allows himself to be hugged by a naked Warren for money. Freaked out by what he’s done, Russell rejects Warren and falls in with a couple of neighbours, Willie and Kurt. Summer suddenly becomes fun – if only Russell wasn’t having such weird dreams about the “faggot”-hating Kurt…
Set at a time when being gay was so abhorrent to society that a kid with homosexual feelings couldn’t even allow himself to admit them while awake, Home After Dark is well crafted. Small is a talented cartoonist and the opening sequence particularly impressive, as Russell stares at his reflection in a Christmas bauble, trying to recognise himself. And the dream sequence in which his desire for Kurt breaks through is as clever as it is truthful.
Small effectively conveys a lot of information using silent panels, and much is sketched with appealing economy. The lack of colour helps set the gloomy tone – and don’t expect things to burst into hopeful hues,
Wizard of Oz-style, because Toto wouldn’t get a happy ending here. In
Home After Dark, dogs are either feral creatures, killed in road accidents or victims of a mystery murderer. While the final image of Home After
Dark could be read as a moment of hope, the 400 pages preceding it pretty much guarantee that ten seconds later life will dump on Russell once more, or he’ll fumble a rare chance at happiness.
There are no rules saying a book
should leave you feeling good, but the odd nugget of optimism makes a fictional world seem more real. Even Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comic Maus, about his troubled relationship with his concentration camp survivor father, had moments of humour.
Home After Dark has been spoken of in the same breath as JD Salinger’s
Catcher in the Rye, but Russell has none of the charismatic intelligence of Holden Caulfield. The mostly silent panels make Russell a cipher, with his interior life shown only in dreams; when he does pronounce on himself or the world, it comes across as forced.
A novel in which the protagonist never moves forward makes for an unsatisfying read. Home After Dark isn’t so much a rite of passage tale as a “stuck in the corridor” story.
Martin Gray writes about comics at Too Dangerous For a Girl: https://dangermart.blog/