Comic book series : Chester Brown

A harrowing memoir of loss and the struggle to connect, Brown's story is told with a spare poetic elegance. A self-absorbed teenager, Chester Brown strays into the difficult territory of friendship and early love while at home there is a slowly building crisis over his mother's mental health. Emotionally intense, the story veers unsteadily between the extremes of eerie detachment and sudden desperate outbursts of need. A complex and disturbing true story told with a nuanced, queasy visual style that lingers in the mind long after the book has been put away.

"A minimalist, but haunting memoir of the artist's troubled adolescence." --New York Times Book Review

"Despite his Canadian citizenship, Chester Brown should be declared a national treasure." --The Onion

"A study in adolescent socialization and the peculiar combination of budding sexuality, self-obsessed dreaminess and downright mean-spiritedness that epitomizes the teenage years." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)