The End of the Arab of the Future: A Youth in the Middle East, 1992–94

Angouléme Grand Prix award-winner Sattouf returns with the excellent first of a two-volume conclusion to his Arab of the Future series which recalls an awkward adolescence overshadowed by family crisis. It’s 1992, and Riad is 14, living in Rennes with his French mother and younger brother Yahya. His father has just kidnapped the youngest son of the family, Fadi, spiriting him to his paternal family’s village in Syria. With limited legal recourse (they were not yet divorced), Riad’s mother hangs by a thread as months pass without news of her son. She pleads with diplomats and lawyers, and even calls on a psychic. In the meantime, Riad’s teenage preoccupations—a nascent interest in grunge music, Métal Hurlant, and an artsy girl from school—come tinged with guilt. Hypervigilance sets in, and he struggles—or can’t bearto recall his father’s face, which has been cut from every family photo. Around him swirl ancient beliefs: religion, family lore, fortune tellers, intimations of black magic. These visions dovetail with his interests in Slayer cassettes, Lovecraft stories, and the paranormal. Throughout, his scolding Syrian cousins look down from thought bubbles overhead. Sattouf’s exuberant cartooning and blunt humor belie the thorny psychological complexity beneath—his trademark deadpan dispatches of a perpetual outsider remain, but deepen into probing ruminations. Riad isn’t so much juggling cultural identities as sifting through handed-down distortions and dogmas, and piecing together beliefs of his own. Brooding and introspective, this accomplished installment turns the series’ keen satirical eye inward. (May)