This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America

New Yorker cartoonist Mahdavian debuts with a charming, meditative graphic memoir that recounts three years he lived in the rural Midwest. In summer 2016, Iranian American Mahdavian and his wife, Emelie, move from the San Francisco Bay Area to six acres in Idaho to live “the millennial dream.” The locals mostly welcome them (and their tiny off-the-grid home), but “people in small towns,” Mahdavian says, “always know who you are.” Casual bigotry runs through neighbors’ nosy questions (“We were debating where your name is from”) as he and Emelie attempt to reopen the local theater (“You’re not trying to bring that Boise-Portland-Seattle-San Francisco artsy-fartsy social-justice-warrior crap here, are you?”) and work on their garden. During their struggle to conceive a child (eventually they do), the land also becomes a fertile canvas to interrogate identity and belonging in a country that rejects the unfamiliar. Poetic asides on botany, etymology, and Persian literature are interwoven between well-timed comedic beats, with Mahdavian unafraid to mock himself. The minimalist black-and-white art captures the intricate connections between place and identity, skillfully managing both moments of cartoon comedy and elegant environmental portraiture. This exceptional debut is a sublime self-examination that’s perfect for fans of Yeon-sik Hong’s Uncomfortably Happy or Eleanor Davis’s The Hard Tomorrow. Agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Sept.)