Marcelo D'Salete

The art: just fucking unbelievably good, top tier, and perfect for the story. The harsh black and white of the drybrush ink drawings, no watered down or muted softness to comfort the eye. The composition of many individual and sets of panels is just breathtaking. The pacing---!!!

The first story (of four) stopped me cold the first time I tried to read this, in fall 2017. Revisiting it a second time, plus a third time immediately after I'd read the rest of the book, shifted my opinion about it somewhat. You can make an argument that choosing death is a radical act of freedom, when your continued life only enriches your tormentors. Choosing death for someone else is in no way freedom for them, so I bounced hard off the idea that he was doing something admirable or romantic. Reading it the third time, and being able to appreciate the subtlety with which d'Salete draws facial expressions, I felt more that d'Salete wasn't "siding with" him, but trying to be realistic about how the intense, pervasive violence of slavery affects the enslaved. The vision at the end can be interpreted as just his, not hers. Her eyes remain closed.

Unfortunately only one of the four is about a woman who Runs For It, though there's an old wise woman side character in another. The last story again "features" a girl with no agency whose value is as her brother's possession. I couldn't figure out why he didn't bring her with him when he ran---maybe because she's blind (assuming I understood correctly---it's not super clear) and he didn't think he could take care of them both? Or is it just him having a human failing in an overwhelming situation?

Overall I was unsure about some of the stories, even giving them the benefit of the doubt, but blown away by the art.… (more)

A soul confined must rebel either in a thousand little ways that build bridges between days or in one all in run for freedom. This heart-breaking graphic novel about the impact of slavery in Brazil, contains four stories where souls RUN FOR IT in various ways. The illustrations are spare like the characters lives, with thick lines that cannot be broken and set up in such a way that the reader often feels encircled. If you pick one story to read I’m not sure you’d be that impressed. Just as running only part of the way home feels different from running all the way. The stories seem to build on each other and by the end you feel more impact than you thought possible. Like the author skipped a stone on a lake and each time the stone hit water it slowed and sunk deeper until finally it catches enough depth to stop you completely.
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