Bryan Talbot

Everso slightly underwhelmed. I liked the style of the book, and Talbot's art is, as ever, frequently beautiful (though I'm less keen on his more cartoony, flat-colour style, than the softer, textured art that thankfully dominates the book). I also enjoyed the little notes from Mary Talbot, where Bryan's art differed from her memories. They made the book feel more of a living document. Unfortunately those tailed off later in the book, presumably because Mary and Bryan improved their communication.

The story interleaves Mary's life and her memories of her father, a James Joyce scholar, and that of Joyce's own daughter Lucia. Both threads were okay, but neither were strong enough as written to carry the book on their own. And neither particularly added anything to the other. So they just ended up propping each other up. Also Lucia's story comes to dominate the book, which is reasonable, but leaves the book feeling a little lopsided. Unfortunately it felt like two disjunct sequences of events, rather than a well-crafted narrative.

Part of the problem is that this feels like an ambitious book, but the execution didn't live up to my expectation. I normally don't mind when a book over-reaches, and can't quite pull things together. Unfortunately, in this case I felt that it under-reached.
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Mostly two-tone, some colour throughout. Excellent parallel stories of Mary Talbot and Lucia Joyce. I knew nothing of either person before I read this book, and both lives were equally intriguing; Mary (is Bryan Talbot's wife), tells of her relationship with her father (James Stephen Atherton) who was a scholar of James Joyce; and Lucia was James Joyce's daughter. The book sets out their lives including a social commentary of the times they are set in. I must admit I am finding parts of the book muddled in my memory due to the overlapping way it was presented, but I guess that was the idea of the author, drawing the parallels.… (more)