Home After Dark

David Small has crafted an atmospheric, timeless, and fearlessly dark coming of age story. He has taken everything and put it out for the world to see, panel by panel. It is uncomfortable, some of the panels make me feel ill, some make me squirm, some almost made me cry. This isn't a book that brings warm fuzziness. Matter-a-fact, this story ends quite abruptly. This was a profoundly difficult story for me to get through.

Small creates a narrative of growing up in the 1950s. His mother has abandoned him. His father, an alcoholic has pretty much abandoned him as well. There isn't much for him to cling to. Many of the situations he finds himself in show just how rudderless a kid he really is. There is violence, gore, bullying, and animal cruelty. This is a heart wrenching and dark book. It takes you places that I am not sure most readers want to go. I actually had to read it in short bursts because it left me feeling to much to plow through it. Stitches his other book, was dark like this but in a slightly different way. By the end of Stitches I hated the parents and what they had did to him, in this story I have no idea how I feel. Maybe just hated the situations that he was put in. It is well done, but definitely not for everyone. Read with caution, especially if you are triggered by the above.

I picked this up without knowing much about it only because it was a used graphic novel with over 300 pages selling for a couple of pounds. I read the entire thing just fine until I got to the last page, which made me burst out crying.

This is a book with mainly pictures telling the story. There is text, but only just enough; there was no need for more as the illustrations told a beautiful but sad story of a child whose parents failed him his entire life as well as the system.

I very much recommend.

Lovely, heartwrenching. I love Small's art style. Such an arresting narrative and composition.