Musings: Bayou, Volumes 1 & 2

I have been interested by Jeremy Love's Bayou webcomic series since I first heard about it (which, admittedly, wasn't too long ago).  I decided it would be a great fit for me to read during A More Diverse Universe because it is just the sort of fantasy I want to read.  Not only is it a beautifully illustrated graphic novel, but it has a really brave young girl at its heart and addresses the very important issue of racism, particularly the myriad ways in which it can effect a society, in a highly original and truly terrifying way.

Lee lives on the Mississippi bayou with her father in the early 1930s.  Her best friend is Lily, a white girl who can sometimes be nice and can sometimes be horrible.  One day, Lee sees Lily eaten by a monster from the swamp.  When she gets home, she realizes that her beloved father has been accused of kidnapping her best friend.  After a brutal beating, he's hauled off to prison, though everyone thinks he's likely to be lynched before he even stands trial.  Lee decides that she must save her father, and sets off to the land of the monster to do so, embarking on an Alice in Wonderland type adventure steeped in Southern folklore and tradition, accompanied by a kind and haunted giant name Bayou who dreams of losing his children to shackles that rise up from the ground.

It is difficult to review these two volumes because the story is unfinished, frustratingly so.  I remember feeling similarly when I got to the end of Castle Waiting and realized that there were many loose ends that I'll likely never see wrap up.  But Castle Waiting is a light and fun read, whereas Bayou does a LOT of heavy lifting.  I ended Volume 2 still not knowing if Lee will save her father from lynching, and there were so many other questions left unanswered, too.

But if you go into this series with a willingness to embrace that ambiguity, then you'll be highly rewarded.  Bayou is one of those books that convinces readers that the comic format is a powerful force in literature that should be taken seriously by all readers.  It explodes with meaning on every page.

It's a coming-of-age story for a young girl.  It's a tale of loyalty and friendship that transcends the traditional boundaries - of a black girl trying to save her white friend, and of a strong man beaten into submission learning about courage from a tiny girl.  It's about broken families and how poverty can impact social structure.  It's about how slavery's legacy carries on for generations so that poor, uneducated little men can feel big and powerful by using cruelty against others.  It's about the power of music, the ill effects of alcohol, friends betraying friends for money, and so much more.  (There is even a very disturbing bit on natural African hair being "nappy" and the straightened, chemically treated hair being much better.)  And it's all told in such lush, beautiful pictures.

I admit that there were parts of this story I didn't get, connections I couldn't draw.  Many characters have ties that began before the story does and lives that extend from our world to the fantasy world and back again.  There are crows - called Jim Crows - that can tear a man apart.  There are bloodhounds that keep everyone submissive.  There are rabbits - and I admit I don't know the significance of these characters being rabbits, but I'm positive there's a reason.

There's really so much here and so much more to come.  The story is on so many levels that I'm positive I'm missing a few of them.  And the drawings are so evocative.  This is one of the best graphic novels I've ever come across - there is so much depth in the story, so much heart in its characters, so much horror in the situations they face, and so much that is true about their relationships.  There's nothing obvious in the story - the characters have feet of clay, and as a reader, I was so worried about little Lee and the people in whom she was forced to put her trust.  But Lee has seen and dealt with more in her ten years than I am likely to see in my lifetime, and if there's anyone who can tackle the problems that arise, it's her.

This review is posted as part of the A More Diverse Universe Reading Tour.