Polar Vortex: A Family Memoir

Dorrance (Mimi at Home) takes her quirky approach to semi-autobiographical comics to the next level with her vulnerable latest. A Londoner originally from the American Midwest, Dorrance relates the story of her abrupt return to her hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, following her 91-year-old mother’s injury due to a fall and subsequent dementia diagnosis. Landlocked in a place she thought she had left behind, Dorrance struggles to navigate the logistics of her mother’s recovery as a historic winter storm—a “polar vortex”—looms on the horizon. Wrestling with the implications of her mother’s confusion, helplessness, and impending mortality, Dorrance is also forced to reckon with the depth of her own emotional estrangements from her family, the rural community in which she grew up, and the person she used to be before she left it all behind to pursue a creative career. Her loose-lined, gestural art style is punctuated by abstract flourishes that fill simple panels with raw emotion and occasional bursts of absurdist humor (a conversation with her mother about recovery options transforms the hospital bed onto a game show stage: “Let’s Make a Deal!”). The gentle lines, soft color palette, and quippy narration bring a sense of comfort and familiarity to the bittersweet story of family, memory, and the inevitability of loss. Dorrance demystifies the challenges of elder care with this sensitive snapshot of the many ways in which memory shapes family history. (Mar.)