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| Yes, graphic novels are thriving. (Well done, Booker) | Yes, graphic novels are thriving. (Well done, Booker) |
| (7 months later) | |
| How am I supposed to feel about the fact that for the first time a graphic novel has made it on to the Booker longlist? As someone who loves comics, and who has championed them in this newspaper for more than a decade, it should go without saying that I’m thrilled. Sabrina by Nick Drnaso is a good book by any standards: as deeply rich in mood, voice and plot as any regular novel I’ve read this year. | How am I supposed to feel about the fact that for the first time a graphic novel has made it on to the Booker longlist? As someone who loves comics, and who has championed them in this newspaper for more than a decade, it should go without saying that I’m thrilled. Sabrina by Nick Drnaso is a good book by any standards: as deeply rich in mood, voice and plot as any regular novel I’ve read this year. |
| But in truth, I can’t help but be irritated by all the fuss, too. To me, it’s as if someone had suddenly pointed out that music is great, or trees, or swimming pools. Given the thriving state of the comic, and the relative weediness of certain other literary forms, surely the bigger story here by far is the fact that the poet Robin Robertson’s wondrous verse novel, The Long Take, is also on the list. | But in truth, I can’t help but be irritated by all the fuss, too. To me, it’s as if someone had suddenly pointed out that music is great, or trees, or swimming pools. Given the thriving state of the comic, and the relative weediness of certain other literary forms, surely the bigger story here by far is the fact that the poet Robin Robertson’s wondrous verse novel, The Long Take, is also on the list. |
| Why Sabrina? And why now? The second question is, perhaps, easier to answer than the first. It can’t be a coincidence that among the judges for the Booker prize in 2018 is Leanne Shapton, the Canadian artist who also happens to be the author of one of the most original graphic novels of the last decade: Important Artefacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry. (The book, which takes the form of an auction catalogue, charts a couple’s relationship from start to finish via photographs of their possessions and the captions that accompany them.) | Why Sabrina? And why now? The second question is, perhaps, easier to answer than the first. It can’t be a coincidence that among the judges for the Booker prize in 2018 is Leanne Shapton, the Canadian artist who also happens to be the author of one of the most original graphic novels of the last decade: Important Artefacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry. (The book, which takes the form of an auction catalogue, charts a couple’s relationship from start to finish via photographs of their possessions and the captions that accompany them.) |
| It may be, too, that the judges as a group, whether consciously or subconsciously, share the notion that the Booker should better reflect literary culture in its widest sense – or even just catch up where others have led the way. This isn’t, after all, the first time a graphic novel has been up for a literary prize. In 2012, Joff Winterhart’s Days of the Bagnold Summer was shortlisted in the novel category of the Costa prize; in the same year, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Bryan and Mary Talbot, about James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, went on to win the biography category. | It may be, too, that the judges as a group, whether consciously or subconsciously, share the notion that the Booker should better reflect literary culture in its widest sense – or even just catch up where others have led the way. This isn’t, after all, the first time a graphic novel has been up for a literary prize. In 2012, Joff Winterhart’s Days of the Bagnold Summer was shortlisted in the novel category of the Costa prize; in the same year, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Bryan and Mary Talbot, about James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, went on to win the biography category. |
| What’s harder to understand, in spite of its brilliance, is the fact that it is Drnaso’s book that has broken through. (I know he won’t mind me saying this since he seems more than a little surprised by it himself.) Yes, Sabrina speaks to the present moment. Ostensibly about a missing girl, its subject is really disconnection: our world is so talky and yet, the narrative suggests, we are less and less able to communicate with one another. It embraces such subjects as gun control and fake news with an ease that should be the envy of most contemporary novelists, obsessed as they are with the past. | What’s harder to understand, in spite of its brilliance, is the fact that it is Drnaso’s book that has broken through. (I know he won’t mind me saying this since he seems more than a little surprised by it himself.) Yes, Sabrina speaks to the present moment. Ostensibly about a missing girl, its subject is really disconnection: our world is so talky and yet, the narrative suggests, we are less and less able to communicate with one another. It embraces such subjects as gun control and fake news with an ease that should be the envy of most contemporary novelists, obsessed as they are with the past. |
| Nevertheless, amazing as this may sound to those who are not readers of graphic novels, Sabrina isn’t exceptional. Every month, outstanding and sometimes truly astonishing graphic novels pile up on my desk, books that can take you to all the places that their regular equivalents do, and in about a tenth of the time (in this sense, all comics speak to the present, frantic moment). When I say that I can think of plenty even better than Sabrina, I don’t mean to diss Drnaso. It’s simply a matter of fact that he’s working in a field where standards are currently higher than the Himalayas. | Nevertheless, amazing as this may sound to those who are not readers of graphic novels, Sabrina isn’t exceptional. Every month, outstanding and sometimes truly astonishing graphic novels pile up on my desk, books that can take you to all the places that their regular equivalents do, and in about a tenth of the time (in this sense, all comics speak to the present, frantic moment). When I say that I can think of plenty even better than Sabrina, I don’t mean to diss Drnaso. It’s simply a matter of fact that he’s working in a field where standards are currently higher than the Himalayas. |
| I think back, since we’re not yet done with 2018, to the two best works of fiction I read in 2017. One was Adam Thorpe’s singular novel, Missing Fay, a kaleidoscopic, moving and slyly witty story of Lincolnshire life that somehow addresses Brexit without the word ever needing to be mentioned. The other was Winterhart’s gorgeously tender graphic novel, Driving Short Distances, a tale of two men, one marooned in the bungalow of his outmoded masculinity, the other slowly emerging from the bunker of his depression. Each of these books is quite different from the other; their authors deployed wildly different talents to achieve radically different effects. But they worked on me in precisely the same way: head first, then heart. Both are masterful, both indelible. | I think back, since we’re not yet done with 2018, to the two best works of fiction I read in 2017. One was Adam Thorpe’s singular novel, Missing Fay, a kaleidoscopic, moving and slyly witty story of Lincolnshire life that somehow addresses Brexit without the word ever needing to be mentioned. The other was Winterhart’s gorgeously tender graphic novel, Driving Short Distances, a tale of two men, one marooned in the bungalow of his outmoded masculinity, the other slowly emerging from the bunker of his depression. Each of these books is quite different from the other; their authors deployed wildly different talents to achieve radically different effects. But they worked on me in precisely the same way: head first, then heart. Both are masterful, both indelible. |
| I cannot say if the Booker judges’ decision to sit Sabrina alongside Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight marks a turning point for graphic novels. My guess is that it doesn’t and that next year normal service will be resumed. But if they have led you to discover Sabrina and you’re wondering where to go next, read Winterhart first. After that? Crikey, but you’re in. | I cannot say if the Booker judges’ decision to sit Sabrina alongside Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight marks a turning point for graphic novels. My guess is that it doesn’t and that next year normal service will be resumed. But if they have led you to discover Sabrina and you’re wondering where to go next, read Winterhart first. After that? Crikey, but you’re in. |
| • Rebecca Cooke is an Observer columnist | • Rebecca Cooke is an Observer columnist |
| Comics and graphic novels | Comics and graphic novels |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Booker prize | Booker prize |
| Publishing | Publishing |
| Bryan Talbot | |
| Mary M Talbot | |
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