daytripper by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon
At this point, it's rare that I'm surprised by how good a book is. I have a list of writers that I follow, and I read their work expecting to enjoy it. I have a list of writers whose work I avoid because I haven't enjoyed it in the past. Most of the time, unfamiliar writers fall somewhere in the middle, before slowly making their way to one of the two lists.
And then a book like daytripper comes along.
I knew Moon and Bá from their earlier work as the artists on Casanova. The twin brothers worked on the series separately, each standing out in their own way. It was that work, along with Bá's work on Umbrella Academy, that led me to giving daytripper a shot. I expected a beautiful looking comic that might have an alright story. What I found was one of the most affecting stories I've experienced in any medium.
On the surface, daytripper is a story about death. Many deaths, in fact. The main character, Brás de Oliva Domingos, is an obituary writer/novelist who meets a series of ends, both timely and untimely. Don't worry - that's not a spoiler.
Beneath the layer of Brás' deaths, there's a deeper layer. Each chapter of the book is a significant day in his life. Bá and Moon use dying as a recurring motif, with each death reflecting the theme of that particular story.
That alone would make daytripper a story worth reading. But the brothers go beyond that. At its heart, this is a story about moments. First kisses. Words said in anger. Missed opportunities. It's about living in those moments, recognizing them, and how powerfully they can alter the course of your life.
I've read daytripper three times, now, and each time I take something new from it. It's a beautiful work from start to finish.
I'd say another important aspect of this book is the relationships between fathers and sons. Which doesn't at all make it a less enjoyable book to read, from a female perspective.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. The different layers to the book are one of the things that make it so amazing. The father/son relationship is especially impressive given how little Brás' father actually appears in the book. He's a presence even with his absence, much of the time.
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