Page 45 Review by Stephen
Consistently engrossing series of very short pieces, most of them no longer than four panels. Even as part of a sequence, the storytelling is wonderfully economical, with the first panel plunging you without delay into the latest memory, history lesson or random, fanciful, often surreal thought for the day. Some are evoked with a lyrical grace that will leave you sighing, whilst others are charmingly whimsical.
Subjects include kisses, summer dresses, hair rats (I never knew about hair rats: hair nets stuffed with - then pinned into - their owner's own hair, giving it extra volume), obeying pedestrian "Walk" signals, or a swim Rebecca once took as a young girl with her brother and two other girls, where she fell far behind, which I found both moving and exhausting. There's a touching honesty in her childhood recollections of naivety, sensitivity, insensitivity and loneliness. In places it's as sweetly melancholic as Lucy Knisley & Hope Larson's LETTERS FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, whilst in others it's as bizarre as Dame Darcy's work.
Visually you'll see Kraatz develop across the pages (the first four of five, in all honesty, have to be got through before you'll hear her real voice begin to speak up) into someone who knows precisely what needs to be drawn, and how. Then, as her lines thicken and soften into a relaxed flow, she does indeed summon up thoughts of Larson and Darcy, but with her very own fondness for the older fashions of the 1940s. Even early on there's a sequence about her neighbour, Mr. Desmond, whose final story is told quietly and concisely before concluding with a panel whose picture contradicts the narration with uncommon eloquence:
"Walking by Mr. Desmond's house, with the huge lilac bush by the front entry, I could usually see him in the living room, sitting in his favourite chair. There were some photos on the table beside his chair. Foremost was one of his deceased wife.
"When she was alive, they lived by the ocean, where she swam twice a day.
"As they grew older, and her memory began to fade, Mr. Desmond became worried about his wife's habitual swims. She he bought a house inland for her."
"I planted a lilac by the door for you," he's saying... But his wife's own private thought bubble is filled with an image of the waves.
