"Jim Henson's The Storyteller: Ghosts" by Michael Walsh, Mark Laszlo, Jennifer Rostowsky, VER

  I've been reading more graphic novels, and came across "Jim Henson's The Storyteller: Ghosts" based on the 1980s TV show. The novel is comprised of four stories on the theme of ghosts-- with the wonderful framing device of having the old man storyteller tells his stories to his talking dog. These stories each floored me, both in art and content, and the result is something truly special. 

 I devoured this volume in an evening. On their own, each story would be something truly triumphant, and together it makes for one great spooky read. Each is incredibly well written, drawn, and stunningly emotional. Mark Laszlo's "The Myling" sets the tale with an incredible personal tale of two brothers and the spirits known as mylings. Jennifer Rostowsky's "Envy & Ash" is a wonderfully timeless, and LGBTQ, exploration  of love-- infatuation?-- lost and the Southeast Asian legend of the ahp. Michael Walsh's "The Last Lullaby" is an absolutely beautiful reflection on death and loss with the Newfoundland and Irish legends of the banshee and bean sidhe. It was my favorite until the last, VER's "The Promise" which is an awesomely moving riff on Slavic folklore and the tales of the veles, and how we leave this world when we die. 

 This book is something very special, indeed. The ghost stories are fantastic in every sense of the word, and each author's writings before the tales about why they chose what they did for their ghost stories-- and what ghost stories mean to them-- are an absolute delight. In any format, the sheer talent of the artists gathered here would be something to behold; for any medium exploring ghost stories, this is an incredibly moving piece of work. 

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison

 

 I finally read Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved," after picking it for my book club, having meant to read it for years. 

Ink will forever be spilled on this masterwork, and rightfully so. "Beloved" is the great American novel. Far too much to be placed into genre, this novel of the trauma of slavery in the American experience, is one of the most intense, heartbreaking, thought-provoking pieces of literature you will ever read. And one of the most difficult, and rewarding. 

 The story of Sethe, her daughters Denver and Beloved, sons Howard and Buglar; her mother-in-law Baby Suggs and Paul D, "Beloved" rightly stands as one of the major novels of the last century. The questions Morrison explores-- of personhood and freedom and hope and despair-- come from the America in which it is placed, and follow us to this day. And a great many smarter than I have written about them. The horrifying circumstances these characters went through were the real life, lived experiences of an untold number of people, and the devastation left with the reader cannot begin to comprehend what life was like for people in these situations. 

"Beloved" is also one of the most expertly written, and beautiful books I have ever read. In the later half of the novel, there is a section of several chapters told in the first person from Sethe's, Denver's and then Beloved's point of view, and how perfectly Morrison brings each of their voices out-- as well as the combined experience of all those who have come before them-- is heartbreaking, brilliant and they will take you breath away. 

  In the final chapter, our narrator repeats, and repeats again, "This is not a story to pass on." No one today living can say,  with any certainty, what art will survive hundreds of years into the future. But long after those of us alive when Morrison published "Beloved" have gone, and our customs and dress and habits are looked at as the dusty foreign things last in time, this novel will be read. And remembered.