Tuesday 17 June 2008

Bottomless Belly Button

Can I make a purchase suggestion? The book is called Bottomless Belly Button (has a ring to it, no?), by Dash Shaw. Its from Fantagraphics and its a hefty 720 pages. Its also beautifully subtle, faintly moving with a hint of the surreal thrown in for good measure because, you know, lifes like that. After forty-odd years of marriage a couple call a family reunion to their beach house in America and announce that they are planning to divorce. The book follows the next few days at the house as the three siblings come to terms with the news and the affect it has on their own relationships. This is a book about detail: a lingering pause, a nervous fidget, dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. Kind of Chris Ware meets Jeffrey Brown but with more purpose. Its beautifully paced allowing the characters room to breath and develop whilst existing in a real environment. A word of warning: if you buy the book in store, it comes with two different covers one featuring the fathers face, the other the mothers. So you have to make a choice whether you go with Mummy or Daddy!

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