cover image The Return of the Honey Buzzard

The Return of the Honey Buzzard

Aimee de Jongh, trans. from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison. SelfMadeHero, dist. by Abrams, $22.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-910593-16-5

Like an engrossing but terrifying dream, de Jongh’s dark, circular psychological drama (originally published in the Netherlands) gets its hooks in readers immediately. Simon, a bearded, bird-loving protagonist, is already depressed at the story’s start because he and his wife will likely have to sell the bookshop that’s been in his family for generations. That’s before a woman commits suicide in front of him at a train crossing. Traumatized by the event, Simon withdraws from his wife into memories of childhood, which metastasize into another strand of gnawing guilt. He also strikes up a friendship with a book-loving female student whom he tells everything that he keeps from his wife. Though credulity is sometimes stretched by all the catastrophes befalling Simon, the narrative has a page-turning quality frequently absent from psychologically astute graphic novels. In her graphic novel debut, de Jongh draws with a spare but expansive eye that captures the dramatically empty spaces and dark woods that emphasize the subconscious trauma threaded through this elegantly rendered tale. (Oct.)