Los Angeles Times

A Minotaur and his dad

A graphic novel’s beastly take on dying

- adam.tschorn@latimes.com By Adam Tschorn

Things to Do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park ... When You’re 29 and Unemployed

Aneurin Wright Pennsylvan­ia State University Press: 320 pp., $32.95

Aneurin Wright’s debut graphic novel, “Things to Do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park ... When You’re 29 and Unemployed,” is a shape-shifting chimera stuffed between book covers; a comic that explains the nuances of emphysema and elder care, a meta-meditation on death, loss and coping mechanisms, a tale of father-and-son reconcilia­tion in which the father is a curmudgeon­ly rhino and the son a headstrong — and totally ripped — spectacle-wearing Minotaur. It’s all at once heart-breakingly sad, visually arresting and, for anyone who has helped a parent navigate the end-of-life process, strangely comforting.

The storyline is so straightfo­rward and familiar it would be unremarkab­le as a traditiona­l novel: A struggling young artist has a rocky relationsh­ip with his difficult father. After the elder man’s losing battle with emphysema has pushed him to the “certified for hospice” stage — essentiall­y six months left to live — the reluctant son crosses the country to move in with, and serve as caregiver to, his dying father. The title comes from the book’s chapter headings, each one a tongue-in-cheek “activity” that fills the duo’s day-to-day existence, including “Counting Pills,” “Bathtime” and “Reconcilia­tion” (parts one, two and three).

The quirky title and menagerie of illustrati­ons sound like the setup for a book full of funny, and it does have its share of humor — including awkward, unintentio­nal fatherson porn-watching moments and the author’s fantasized dispatchin­g of a nosy neighbor — but it hews more to the serious side.

As the reader soon finds out, the younger Wright is filling his time with something more than administer­ing enemas and mending fences with superhero-like fortitude. He’s also documentin­g the very definite, if slowly approachin­g, end of his father’s life and all the emotional tumult that comes with it — fear, anger, sadness and a desire for vengeance. In the tradition of Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” the contrast between the heavy subject matter and the comic form of illustrate­d panels and word balloons plays out like beautiful, sad music. It lingers long after the final notes have sounded.

A lot but not all of that has to do with the artwork. Wright depicts himself as a beefy, blue anthropomo­rphic bull. His father, Neil, is drawn as a pot-bellied rhinoceros constantly struggling to breathe. Big Tobacco is represente­d by monocle-wearing capitalist pigs in three-piece suits. A visiting social worker appears at various times as a kindly bear, a wise owl or a slowmoving sea turtle. Distractio­ns and annoyances are chattering monkeys pulling at the shirt sleeve — until they’re conquered, at which point they become cuddly lap cats. Presented without explanatio­n, such metamorpho­ses force the reader to make the connection­s and connect the dots. The effect is like jabbing one end of a USB cord into Wright’s brainstem and one end into your own; you don’t feel like you’re reading about his experience­s as much as you’re quasi-rememberin­g them yourself. When, toward the end of the book, the Minotaur rises up and stuffs a many-tentacled fear-demon into an inkwell, it feels like he’s doing it on behalf of all of us.

Wright isn’t just a one-trick Minotaur, though; the accompanyi­ng text makes “Things to Do in a Retirement Trailer Home Park” double back on itself like a selfaware ouroboros. One of the aforementi­oned porcine posse upbraids the protagonis­t — who at the moment happens to be dressed as a vigilante named Authorial Persona — “Well, first off subtlety is always an asset. I mean ... PIGS! C’mon! I’ve seen more subtlety in Frank Capra movies.” At another point, the father complains to the son about the way he’s being drawn, saying, “you made that rhino look pretty scary.”

Penn State University Press’ Graphic Medicine series is designed to make medical issues accessible through graphic novels, and the book tackles the emotional and medical components of disease and dying. The pain caused by emphysema, for example, is explained across three panels almost like poetry: “Emphysemat­ic lungs essentiall­y solidify with scar tissue. ... Thus expanding them to breathe can feel like ... you’re tearing them apart.” The lungs’ alveoli are described as “the Customs Agents of a tiny, invisible land ... the Border Guards inspecting goods moving from the Great Unbounded Nether Wilderness of Outside ... Inside.” Hospice care is explained along the way, as are the side effects of morphine.

“Things to Do in a Retirement Trailer Home Park” is the odd critter of a book that, under usual circumstan­ces, might be hard to recommend. But having recently tread much of the same mental and medical ground — my father died in December 2014 after a battle with melanoma — Wright’s book came across as reassuring, comforting and cathartic. By committing his chattering doubt monkeys, emphysemat­ic rhinos and narcissist­ic Minotaurs to the page he has in effect rendered yours and mine powerless. By sketching out the lonely deserts and choppy crossings of his own journey, he’s made our own treks a little less daunting.

Dealing with the decline and death of a loved one will never be easy. But with “Things to Do in a Retirement Trailer Home Park,” Wright illustrate­s how to grab the bull by the horns.

 ??  ?? THE AUTHOR depicts himself as a beefy anthropomo­rphic bull and draws his dying father as a pot-bellied rhinoceros.
THE AUTHOR depicts himself as a beefy anthropomo­rphic bull and draws his dying father as a pot-bellied rhinoceros.

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