Essex County: Collected, by Jeff Lemire

Admittedly, I’m pretty new to graphic novels, having only picked up my first one at the end of 2008. Since then I’ve waded a bit further into the medium, and have glimpsed at the breadth it has to offer: from the emotional complexities and dark psychological undercurrents of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home to the clever social criticism, mystery, and adventure of Y: The Last Man. So I was thrilled to see a graphic novel make the list, curious to see how it would alter the discussion.

So much of Canadian writing is rooted in setting, and Jeff Lemire’s Essex County not only conjures up a landscape, but gives you a real sense of small-town living: the isolation, the ties between neighbours and family members, the common touchstones. While larger cities might be known for their architecture or landmarks rather than their populace, we get to know Essex County through its people, and those people are the town’s most essential architecture.

They are what holds it up, holds it together, and though the roads between them may become impassable (and this story has its share of loss and betrayal) there are others to clear them, to ensure that the whole does not fall apart. Nowhere is this more evident than in the last section, the story of the Country Nurse, who in her travels for her occupation (and some non-medical meddling), keeps the town stitched together like the patchwork quilt she works on every night. (Moving from the nurse at her sewing to aerial shots of the patchwork fields in last pages of the novel is a brilliant, soaring moment.)

And it is the town’s secret connections, gradually revealed to the reader, that really drive the story here. For this is a story not occupied with what’s happening in the present, but with discovering how the past shaped the present, and Lemire spends much of the narrative in flashback and memory, with ghosts and scrapbooks constantly intruding on the present, drawing its characters, and the reader, back to pivotal events. With our bird’s eye view, we become like the ubiquitous crow that transcends time and space, weaving the story together. (Though I must admit, I was a little confused by the symbolism of this crow, which generally means mischief or danger, a sort of warning, which I didn’t feel was a dominant tone here.)

What does dominate is the sense of loneliness and isolation. So many panels contain a solitary figure, and when they are shared, the relationships depicted within them are so strained that the two figures may as well be in their separate boxes. The rare moments of connection between characters are thus that much more powerful: Jimmy playing make believe with young Lester, the on-ice bonding between Vince and Lou, or the doomed spark between Lou and Beth. Paradoxically, though it is family secrets that often isolate our characters, those interpersonal connections are essential anchors, to Essex County, and to each other, that need to be preserved, for as Lou experiences in the city and Kenny realizes about Lester, the cost of total isolation is much greater.

With their superhero and daily funny strip roots, a neophyte like me always fears a graphic novel will slip into being heavy-handed or obvious, but Essex County is anything but, and Lemire creates many subtle, sophisticated moments. Even his emotional peaks are understated: a group of hockey players tapping their sticks to mourn their lost teammate. The art, too, is sparse when it needs to be, but other times incredibly rich (the scrapbooks and albums inside it are gorgeously rendered). The black and white treatment is perfect for a world that is often bleak and lonely, it seems to embody the secrets that shadow the characters, giving them both darkness and depth.

Brooding and subtle, the great pleasure of Essex County is being temporarily welcomed into its community, climbing into its family tree and discovering how deep its roots run.