Short-listed for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition
"Splashes of color interrupt the blue haze of Dorrance’s poignant memoir, which hovers over her mother as she develops dementia and follows Dorrance’s journey home to the Midwest to care for her one winter."
―The New York Times Book Review
"With gallows humor, visual ingenuity, and a whole lot of heart, Dorrance chronicles the two chilling months she returned home to care for her ailing mother―while a literal polar vortex looms in the background."
―Oprah Daily
"Polar Vortexis enchanting, every page lovely to look at, so funny and plangent and full of sly wisdom . . . it’s also strikingly relevant. . . . Dorrance’s drawings are as expressive and as deft as those of Alison Bechdel. . . It is all, in short, magical: a triumph of art and feeling. I loved it."
―The Guardian,Graphic Novel of the Month
"A pitch-perfect piece of work―frank and self-critical narration, incorporating photos and postcards, dread-drenched pacing, and beautifully limpid blue-gray/russet art. . . . Dorrance’s gorgeous, plaintive story speaks to those caring for aging parents and realizing they must eventually prepare for their own exits. A lyrical read-alike forCan’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?by Roz Chast."
―Library Journal,starred review
"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."
―Publishers Weekly
"Raw, funny, heartbreaking and brilliantly simple: Like all great art,Polar Vortexdevastates in the deepest way. I can't wait to give this beautiful book to everyone I know."
―Sarah Blake,New York Times–bestselling author ofThe PostmistressandThe Guest Book
"Dorrance’s upbeat, airy linework packs an unsuspecting emotional wallop. . . . A delicately drawn, unconventional chronicle of loss."
―Kirkus Reviews
"Unsparingly honest and with an eye that refuses to waver, Denise Dorrance’s graphic novelPolar Vortexis utterly original and unique, managing to both transcend and subvert its genre. Dorrance has rendered a story of geriatric elder care into something edgy, beautiful, visceral, irreverent and yet ultimately universal. I cannot recommend it highly enough."
―Miranda Cowley Heller, #1New York Times–bestselling author ofThe Paper Palace
"An honest, affecting graphic memoir about a messy series of compromises and reconciliations accompanying end-of-life caregiving."
―Foreword
"Moments of light and joy . . . run throughout the book . . . Ultimately, the book is hopeful, while not sugar-coating the realities of caring for a parent with dementia."
―The Comics Journal
"There’s a poignancy tinged with sharpness to Dorrance’s drawings that reminds me of Posy Simmonds, as she captures with a mere flick of her pen the complex emotions between an adult daughter and her increasingly frail, childlike mother―the guilt, the uncertainties and the early stages of grieving."
―Collagerie
Biografía del autor
American-born cartoonist and illustratorDenise Dorranceworked in magazines in New York for twelve years (including atCosmopolitanunder Helen Gurley Brown) before moving to London in 1993. Her cartoons have run for decades in many publications, including theMail on Sunday(UK).Polar Vortexis her first graphic novel. In the UK, it was shortlisted for the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel competition and won the LDComics 2020 Rosalind B. Penfold Prize.
Polar Vortex by Denise Dorrance review – hazards of a homecoming
The American cartoonist’s story of a trip to tackle her frail mother’s needs is funny, wise and magical
Denise Dorrance’s graphic memoir, Polar Vortex, is enchanting, every page lovely to look at, so funny and plangent and full of sly wisdom. But it’s also (dread word) strikingly relevant. Its principal subject being old age, by rights it should bring vast crowds of new readers to comics. There can, after all, be few people now who haven’t at least some experience of caring for – or just worrying about – an older relative, as the author does in her book; even those who aren’t yet there know full well what lies ahead: the care bills that will have to be paid, the attics that must be cleared out. After I finished reading it, I thought of my own boxes of photographs, my heaving bookshelves. To whom am I leaving the burden of sorting them out? I pushed the thought away, but it cannot be avoided for ever.
Dorrance has lived in London since 1995, but she was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in Polar Vortex, her first full-length graphic book, she returns to it, somewhat reluctantly. Her elderly, widowed mother is in hospital after a fall; decisions need to be made. On paper, this sounds a bit grinding. Please, no commodes! But Dorrance has a delicate touch, and a feeling for the rich territory on which she finds herself.
There is a lot going on, and not all of it has to do with her mother’s dementia. When we go home, we become children again – even, sometimes, at the moments when we most need to be adult – and she’s amusing about this. Then again, what constitutes home, when you’ve been away for so long? She gives us lots of fish-out-of-water jokes: culture clashes born not only of her metropolitan sophistication, but of what the locals regard as her Englishness (they can’t get enough of her accent, which to their ears makes her sound like the queen).
The weather is bad – the book’s title refers not only to hard emotional terrain, but to an incoming storm that will deposit many feet of snow – and this gives her pages a kind of reverse-fairytale feel. The whiteness casts a spell; introversion is impossible when distractions cannot easily be trekked to (especially if you’re wearing, not layers of nylon padding, but a woollen London coat). In her drawings, as expressive and as deft as those of Alison Bechdel or even Posy Simmonds, Dorrance plays up to this. Death appears, like a pantomime villain; the Cedar Rapids hospital, red-brick and Victorian-looking, rises in the blizzard like some impenetrable castle.
But she’s creative in so many other ways, too, deploying old photographs, postcards and letters – and even, at one point, a wagon train – as a means of pacing the narrative. When it comes to her mother’s (limited) options post-hospital, the ghost of the cheesy TV host Monty Hall appears to turn the whole thing into a primetime quizshow (“Number two! Become a resident at Living Care!”). It is all, in short, magical: a triumph of art and feeling. I loved it. I can’t say enough good things about it. Buy it for everyone you know.
Polar Vortex by Denise Dorrance is published by New River (£18.99).
Chico & Rita by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal – review
The book of the animated film about the lives of two Latin musicians leaves Rachel Cooke feeling exhilarated
Rachel Cooke
Sunda 5 June 2011
T
en years ago, the Spanish film director Fernando Trueba asked the artist Javier Mariscal to create a poster for his Latin jazz documentary, Calle 54. Though neither of them knew it at the time, this was to be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership and, last year, the pair finally released Chico & Rita, an animated film. Chico & Rita tells the story of a gifted piano player and a beautiful singer and their adventures in 50s Havana, Las Vegas, Hollywood and New York – and it has a superb soundtrack by the Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés (it also features numbers by Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter, and Dizzy Gillespie). When it hit the festivals, it was widely acclaimed – our own Philip French called it "utterly delightful... affecting, funny... erotic" – and no wonder. Truly, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to love it.
The Russian Detective by Carol Adlam review – exquisitely illustrated celebration of early crime fiction
This richly evocative tale – part of a project drawing on the work of long-forgotten contemporaries of Dostoevsky – bears repeated readings
Rachel Cooke
Monday 25 March 2024
Everyone knows – even if they haven’t actually read them – about the fat novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. But The Russian Detective, a remarkable new graphic novel by Carol Adlam, takes its inspiration from more obscure sources. For some years, Adlam, an associate professor in the Nottingham School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University, and Claire Whitehead, a reader in modern languages at the University of St Andrew’s, have been working together on the Lost Detective Project: a collaboration that draws on the work of long-forgotten writers of crime fiction who were contemporaries of Dostoevsky. As part of this project, Adlam has created several cross-media adaptations of their stories, of which The Russian Detective is one – and it could not be more rich or more beautiful if it tried. This is a book that repays multiple readings (and, for added pleasure, perhaps a little background reading).
The pet I’ll never forget: Buddy the rescue dog, whose final walk brought him so much joy
Loving us but hating other dogs, Buddy was a delight at home and a nightmare away from it. When his time came, we decided to give him one last outing
My partner, Paul, and I are dog lovers through and through but our office jobs meant it had never been practical, or fair, to have a dog of our own. In lockdown our working situations changed, however, so we visited Oxford Animal Sanctuary and met Buddy, a labrador/border collie cross. He was nine and very reactive to other dogs. Knowing he had spent three years in and out of kennels, we couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him in what must have been an incredibly stressful environment. So on 4 July 2020 we brought him home.
Her uncanny portrayals of famous women have brought her legions of fans. Now, as she prepares to play Emily Maitlis in the pivotal Prince Andrew interview, the actor talks to Eva Wiseman about acting, soft drinks and ‘side hustles’ Eva WisemanSunday 24 March 2024
“Ihave a tendency to be cast as those types of women who have unbelievable brains,” says Gillian Anderson, running her hands through her glamour of blonde hair, “because my resting face is intellectual, as if I’m thinking about Proust or the world order. When in fact it’s usually, actually, dinner.” The next unbelievably brained woman Anderson will play is British journalist Emily Maitlis, in Scoop, a film about the process of securing her 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew. This was the interview in which he discussed his friendship with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, his inability to sweat, and the Woking branch of Pizza Express, and, in 50 fast minutes, managed to do more damage to the royal family than five seasons of The Crown.