18 Aug / One Line by Ray Fawkes [in Shelf Awareness]
*STARRED REVIEW
Ray Fawkes’s One Soul debuted in 2011, earning extensive adulation (including an Eisner nomination) for its never-before-done graphic presentation of 18 lives via 18-panel grids divided across two-page spreads. His 2014 follow-up, The People Inside, used a similar format to follow 24 individuals through various relationships. One Line resurrects and enhances Fawkes’s compelling set-up to depict 18 global families over four centuries. To read the trilogy chronologically isn’t necessary, but rewardingly illuminating.
Fawkes opens with a stark, single-panel-per-page, warning prologue: before words and dialogue, humanity has already settled into a violent cycle of territorial purges, murderous confrontations, promised revenge. That narrative will repeat far too often through so-called “civilized” generations. As Fawkes introduces his 18 families, geographies come first – some with recognizable names and landmarks, including Venezia, France, Ireland – with overlaps hinted at, sharing homelands, bloodlines, bloodlust. War, imperialism, slavery, religious persecution and purges, gender inequity, poverty, haunt throughout, but the destruction is tempered with nods to familial bonds: “I find someone” – to love; “I will teach [him/her] everything I know”; “we can rely on each other.” Parents fail, siblings part, children cleave, communities shatter, so many die. May the necessary survive.
Fawkes’s simple black-and-white drawings belie a multilayered, interconnected narrative. His 18 panels per spread are consistent and uniform, but their contents often eschew borders, spilling into one another as families confront, overlap, and challenge each other. Panels turn completely black as families die out – sometimes at the same time. Audiences will find a single read is not enough; multiple meditative readings should yield gratifying insights each time.
Discover: This graphic novel compellingly follows 18 families over generations, caught in cycles of destruction yet alleviated by precious moments of bonding.
Review: “Graphic Books,” Shelf Awareness, August 17, 2021
Readers: Adult
Published: 2021