Seven Places Without You was a 2018 graphic novel, originally published in Spanish because Berrio is Spanish (living in Madrid) and translated by Fiona Marshall for a 2019 English-language Europe Comics edition. [1]
The main character is Elena. She's young, living in a city - probably Madrid. Over the course of the book, we come to think that she's still a student. She's been living with Jorge, in his family's home, for some time, and it was good - at first. But Jorge is spending less and less time at home, ignoring Elena more and more. She doesn't know why, and he's been evasive when she tries to ask.
It has seven chapters, each set in a different place - hence the title. It starts in Jorge's family house, right at the moment when Elena decides she has to leave, and calls friends to see if she can stay there for a while. Those friends - Maria and Nacho - turn up in several chapters, as does Mario, another friend who has been pining for some time for Elena and awkwardly says so midway through the book. The second chapter is set in Maria and Nacho's apartment, before and during a party, and later chapters are set during a family dinner at Elena's parents' house, at Mario's apartment, in a park, at an evening out in a bar, and, finally, in Elena's new solo apartment.
It's mostly quiet and observational. Berrio focuses on Elena but we see her from outside. We know her thoughts - like anyone in the world - only from what she tells other people, and we're pretty sure she's not saying everything she feels. Berrio has a soft earth-toned palette, with squared-off panels not bordered by lines.
And, given the title, we assume, as the book goes on and there's no word from Jorge, that he will not be a character in the book. My just raising the question is possibly a spoiler, so I'll leave it at that. Seven Places Without You is a book about the Jorge-shaped hole in Elena's life, how she realized that it was already there and the ways that she began to fill that space in the early days after the break.
It's just as lovely, if a lot more melancholy, than Kiosco was. Berrio is incisive and thoughtful; his people are real and understandable and likable - even Jorge running away, even Mario clinging too close - and we see all of them through the lens of how they interact with Elena.
[1] I've praised Europe Comics multiple times before: they're digital-only and don't really promote much, since they're primarily a marketing effort from continental-European publishers towards English-language publishers, but they do - or did - a large volume of excellent books far outside the usual standard North American comics genres.
No comments:
Post a Comment