Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Polar Vortex is enchanting


POLAR VORTEX IS ENCHANTING

"Winner of the LDComics Rosalind B. Penfold Prize
Short-listed for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition

"Splashes of color interrupt the blue haze of Dorrance’s poignant memoir, which hovers over her mother as she develops dementia and follows Dorrance’s journey home to the Midwest to care for her one winter."
 The New York Times Book Review

"With gallows humor, visual ingenuity, and a whole lot of heart, Dorrance chronicles the two chilling months she returned home to care for her ailing mother―while a literal polar vortex looms in the background."
 Oprah Daily

"Polar Vortex is enchanting, every page lovely to look at, so funny and plangent and full of sly wisdom . . . it’s also strikingly relevant. . . . Dorrance’s drawings are as expressive and as deft as those of Alison Bechdel. . . It is all, in short, magical: a triumph of art and feeling. I loved it."
 The Guardian, Graphic Novel of the Month

"A pitch-perfect piece of work―frank and self-critical narration, incorporating photos and postcards, dread-drenched pacing, and beautifully limpid blue-gray/russet art. . . . Dorrance’s gorgeous, plaintive story speaks to those caring for aging parents and realizing they must eventually prepare for their own exits. A lyrical read-alike for Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast."
 Library Journal, starred review

"Gentle lines, soft color palette, and quippy narration bring a sense of comfort and familiarity to the bittersweet story of family, memory, and the inevitability of loss. Dorrance demystifies the challenges of elder care with this sensitive snapshot of the many ways in which memory shapes family history."
 Publishers Weekly

"Raw, funny, heartbreaking and brilliantly simple: Like all great art, Polar Vortex devastates in the deepest way. I can't wait to give this beautiful book to everyone I know."
 Sarah Blake, New York Times–bestselling author of The Postmistress and The Guest Book

"Dorrance’s upbeat, airy linework packs an unsuspecting emotional wallop. . . . A delicately drawn, unconventional chronicle of loss."
 Kirkus Reviews

"Unsparingly honest and with an eye that refuses to waver, Denise Dorrance’s graphic novel Polar Vortex is utterly original and unique, managing to both transcend and subvert its genre. Dorrance has rendered a story of geriatric elder care into something edgy, beautiful, visceral, irreverent and yet ultimately universal. I cannot recommend it highly enough."
 Miranda Cowley Heller, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Paper Palace

"An honest, affecting graphic memoir about a messy series of compromises and reconciliations accompanying end-of-life caregiving."
 Foreword

"Moments of light and joy . . . run throughout the book . . . Ultimately, the book is hopeful, while not sugar-coating the realities of caring for a parent with dementia."
 The Comics Journal

"There’s a poignancy tinged with sharpness to Dorrance’s drawings that reminds me of Posy Simmonds, as she captures with a mere flick of her pen the complex emotions between an adult daughter and her increasingly frail, childlike mother―the guilt, the uncertainties and the early stages of grieving."
 Collagerie

Biografía del autor

American-born cartoonist and illustrator Denise Dorrance worked in magazines in New York for twelve years (including at Cosmopolitan under Helen Gurley Brown) before moving to London in 1993. Her cartoons have run for decades in many publications, including the Mail on Sunday (UK). Polar Vortex is her first graphic novel. In the UK, it was shortlisted for the 2020 Myriad First Graphic Novel competition and won the LDComics 2020 Rosalind B. Penfold Prize.


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