French cartoonist and illustrator Miriam Malle’s third book (you might know her from The League of Super Feminists and This is How I Disappear) sits firmly within a sort of nexus of culture war hot potatoes: feminism, cancel culture, identity politics. How ferociously you care about such things, and which side of the divide you find yourself perching upon, may determine what you think of the book. But let’s try and put all that to one side for a moment and answer such common questions as ‘what is the book about?’ and ‘Is the art any good?’
Let’s answer that last question first: we like Malle’s eye. Her art feels like it leans in the direction of Rutu Modan. The pages and frames are clean, and whether said frames are full of people or zeroing in on peoples’ fingers (I like Malle’s way with fingers), there is much that is pleasing to the eye. She’s strong on facial expressions too (particularly in the way that people don’t actually say what they are thinking sometimes but let you know how they feel by curving their mouth up at the corner) – sardonic is the word I’m looking for here I think.
Let’s talk story. Our narrator is called Cleo and when we meet her she is a cartoonist looking to make a name for herself, living with her boyfriend who is a slightly better known / more successful graphic novelist. Out for drinks one night with friends, Cleo is introduced to someone who reacts badly to the name of her boyfriend – and when she relates the encounter to her boyfriend, he flies off the handle too. We’re in the land of the red flag. Over the course of the first half of the book, Cleo tentatively finds out just what it was that happened and what happened is – enough for two people to disagree on (he was obsessive, mean and rude, she was frightened and wounded by the experience).
The second half of the book (which is about a third of the size of the first half of the book) finds Cleo in a whole other place, having ended the relationship and moved out of the city. She makes friends with a bunch of women who all live together and they share stories and provide a safe place for everyone to just be. The narrative impetus of the first half of the book is replaced with a sense of what a different kind of life a person can lead if they choose to. By the close, Cleo is making her first tentative steps to a possible new way of living.
Now, there are bound to be generational differences when it comes to your experience of the book. It may be you agree that a person should be cancelled for being a dick at any point in their life. That cancelled person shouldn’t be allowed to have a job or find love or earn forgiveness. They were a dick once. That is all you need to know. Or possibly you feel that view is a little Puritanical. Or not. There will be views all the way along that spectrum I expect. It may even be that you can read So Long Sad Love merely as the story of a couple who cease to be a couple and the way in which one half of the couple got over it, sans some of the cultural baggage. That might even be best.
What we would say is: we enjoyed the piece of art that is So Long Sad Love. It also troubled us in some ways and made us think (which is no bad thing). If you are a fan of graphic novels, we’d recommend you engage with it and see what it does for you.
Any Cop?: Malle is a distinctive and interesting new (to us) cartoon artist and we’ll certainly be on the look out for what she does in the future.
Bookmunch 