"Displaced Persons"
Friday August 1st 4pm - Signing With Author Derek McCulloch
Glimpsing at a cover or synopsis for the newest graphic novel by Derek McCulloch (Eisner award nominated writer of Stagger Lee) and Anthony Peruzzo gives few hints about the journey inside. What is the book about? The plain answer- it’s a masterful blend of crime thriller, family drama, and supernatural suspense that has both murder and time travel. The better answer? Everything you need to know can be found in the name. It speaks of those who feel removed from where they belong. Some are separated from their families, others from their very identities. They are immigrants, ghosts, wandering children, and kidnapped women. They are Displaced Persons.
The tale begins with private investigator Garland Price and his immigrant friend Davy Abramowitz as they work a missing persons gig in San Francisco, a case that raises increasingly bizarre questions. We then follow their ancestors and predecessors to uncover answers in wide-spanning settings and eras. True to the book’s title, each character personifies the many iterations of what it means to be lost and out of place, literally and figuratively.
McCulloch’s writing is exceptional in that it condenses complex material into simple form. Characters are deep and developed while remaining relatable. Seemingly conventional circumstances are made unique through interconnecting plot points in the narrative timeline, tied together by supernatural means. The dialogue reads well and is easy to follow, but the finest allusions and statements are hidden among the casual exchanges between climaxes. Thus a careful reading is encouraged to gain the fullest view of the symbolic and thematic web McCulloch has weaved.
Peruzzo’s artwork reflects this affective simplicity as well by trading a wide color palette for clarity of expression from the lines. His style of rough line art and low contrast complements the pervading theme of “displacement”- the eye never sits too comfortably on these dark illustrations, as if something were missing (in a good way). Even the occasional appearance of bright colors are used to the effect of emphasizing the main theme, highlighting characters that find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There is no comprehensive way to summarize what sort of book McCulloch and Peruzzo have put out here. It is an undeniably personal work of great artistic achievement, intended to explore that common disposition which reaches many of us on occasion: the sense that we should be elsewhere, that we are trapped in our own past or future, unable to see the present. But to truly experience its weight you have to hold it in your head. So consider picking up Displaced Persons if ever you have felt such sentiments. Despite the title, you will feel right at home.