Clay Footed Giants

A father hopes to rein in his quick temper in the brooding graphic novel debut from filmmakers Chevarier and McGuire. Pat keeps snapping at his elementary school–age kids, Sam and Lily. Though the outbursts—during which he’s drawn as a looming grizzly bear—tend to stem from a protective impulse, he is troubled by echoes of his own father’s alcohol-fueled rages. His wife, Ester, takes frequent business trips, and he begs her to stop leaving him to solo-parent (“I’m afraid I’ll hurt them”). When Sam gets in a fight at school, Pat fears he’s passed down some essential fury inherited from his own father—and posits that men haven’t “evolved enough yet to care for children.” This all coincides with the discovery that his father, who won’t answer questions about his military service, received the Bronze Star in Vietnam. Pat turns to his friends—a stay-at-home dad and a professor who has insights into epigenetics—to help process it all. They push back on his tendency to throw all his baggage on his genes, as does Ester, who tells Pat, “Trauma can be inherited, but that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to repeat all your dad’s worst mistakes.” Chevarier renders Pat’s mounting anxiety in emotive pages rubbed raw with frenetic pencil shading. It’s a charmingly drawn book about a thorny topic. (Oct.)