Sparks

This is a poignant, often sad fantasy about the life of a girl who considers herself a failure, leading a fairly miserable life even with her skills and a decent job. It truly lives up to its moniker of fairy tale, for it is as all good lore: Gritty, supernatural, with a few morals to impart and a decidedly imperfect ending.

It begins by introducing the characters, the young woman Jo, her drugged-up mother, her domineering cop father, her coworkers at the shop. She is an ace at fixing cars, but deeply depressed with a non-existant social life. Staying late one night, she decides to build a humanoid out of spare parts, simply as a lark; but when lightning hits it, it comes to life. After understandable fright, she takes it home and installs it in a room on the roof of her tenement, and starts trying to teach it language and knowledge. He eventually picks up a name from the neighbor, who loves to play as King Arthur: Galahad. Jo slowly makes progress on teaching him, with the help of a spell-n-speak to give him voice, through flash cards and later many books from the library, particularly about astronomy.

At the same time she's trying to find her way around a social life with a few other young women, visiting clubs and going on double-dates. Each seems to become one disappointment and disaster after another; even an enjoyable and relaxed evening with a local magnate that leads to a night of passion, ends up being a misunderstanding. Here and there, however, her very imperfect friends and even family reveal sides of themselves she never knew, giving her a glimpse into who they are deep inside. But all of that comes to an abrupt end when Galahad saves her from her father's drunken abuse one night, and they have to flee. The end is triumphant, passionate, and heartbreaking, and to say more would be to ruin the conclusion of a very fine story.

This is one of the few books that have truly affected me on a deep emotional level recently. It's drawn in a style very similar to PvP, enough so that I was drawn to it and picked it up for that reason alone, but despite the comic appearances it's truly a very melancholy story, full of sadness and pain and decadence, with threads of wonder and hope running through it. It deeply affected me at a time when I was dealing with similar circumstances. The characters are all fully-realized, each beginning as almost cut-outs only to expose their dreams and fears and become more real. The art becomes a metaphor to the way that we view people, beginning simply as "others" that we pigeonhole, until we get that glimpse inside and they suddenly become as human to us as to Jo. It is the story of one girl growing up, trying to come to grips with her past and her future. The inspiration may be fantasy, but the intensity of genuine emotion drips off every page, in the words, the expressions, and in the stark bleakness of the large spreads. We see Jo starting to live life again for the first time in years, witness her many disappointments and failures while slowly discovering who she is in the world. And it is all done with deep respect for the characters and the reader, death and pain and escape and joy tugging at the heart without the whiney angst that turns one away. A fairy tale for adults.

The dialogue is also well-used, and feels very realistic. We never see into anyone's thoughts; we never need to, because our view is of Jo, though her thoughts are often written down in a journal or opened up to Galahad. The narration is very low-key, preferring to let the story tell itself through art and action once under way. The art, of course, is stunning, easily conveying emotions, clear events, and important details. Obviously a quite solid work that can bring new insights and hope to anyone struggling with their own future.

This book will definitely appeal to anyone who has ever been in this position, especially those in it right now. There is some violence and suggestive sex, but the emotional pain and turmoil far outweighs that, and it would not be particularly suited for young children. But the end offers a mixed hope, that life can go on.