Reviewed: Can of Worms by Catherine Doherty; published by Fantagraphics Books.
The plot: An adopted woman goes in search of her birth mother.
The back cover of this new graphic novel describes it as "a thinly veiled autobiographical fiction," and the way the narrative resonates with truth leads me to believe the veil is very thin indeed.
Doherty gives us, in this nearly wordless tale, the story of her search for her birth mother, who gave her baby up after realizing she would be getting no help from the baby's father. Catherine Flaherty (see how thin that veil is?) wakes up one day and begins her quest...a single-minded campaign illustrated in a charming, clean style reminiscent of Bill Watterston (of Calvin and Hobbes fame).
I say the story is nearly wordless, and it is; of course, there are complex emotions and circumstances involved in the issues addressed in this story, and Doherty is generous with close-ups of paperwork, newspaper clippings, notepads and personal letters that convey information that would otherwise be difficult to illustrate without words. More than once, we see Catherine's notepad obsessively filled with nothing but her mother's maiden name, driving home the point that this quest is filling her mind and occupying every waking moment.
When Catherine receives a letter from someone she thinks may be her mother, telling her that she is in fact not the woman Catherine is looking for, we are not convinced, and neither is Catherine. The coincidence is too much, and Catherine continues to pursue the truth.
The truth eventually comes, although I don't imagine either the protagonist or the story's author was overjoyed by the final resolution of her search. Closure of a sort is reached, but after all the effort out into finding her birth mother, the eventual distance between the two of them must be a disappointment. That Doherty chooses to end her tale with a final note as distant as it is friendly, speaks volumes. One is left feeling cheered that the search ended successfully, but saddened that more of a relationship didn't develop between the two women. They've been separated as much by the circumstances of their current lives as by the chain of events that split them apart decades ago.
This is a small tale, well told. It is not epic, but undoubtedly it felt that way to its creator. It's a tale she needed to tell, and both she and we are well-rewarded for its existence.
Reviewed: Can of Worms by Catherine Doherty; published by Fantagraphics Books.