Page 45 Review by Stephen
Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month July 2026. And my Book of the Year.
We begin thus:
***
What follows is a true historical account of two women’s lives – Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake.
Or rather, it is nearly true. Some amount of detail and experience is lost.
(And some was purposely destroyed. I’m looking at you, Charity.)
***
Haha! From the phenomenal, best-selling creator of ALONE IN SPACE, ON A SUNBEAM and the autobiographical SPINNING, comes the true life and times of Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant, who for 44 years survived and thrived as an openly lesbian couple in 19th century Weybrdge, Vermont: small, remote, perpetually freezing, god-fearing, close-knit.
Full of surprises, this is a joy to read! Walden blows the dust of what is only the past to us, and instead breathes vivid, vibrant, edge-of-your-seat life into the immediate present for Charity and Sylvia with thoroughly researched, richly detailed, thrillingly beautiful and intricate compositions.
February 1807, and Sylvia Drake is exhausted. A young, unwed woman, she is living with and caring for her sister Polly’s her chaotic household. But a newcomer from Massachusetts is eagerly anticipated: family friend Charity Bryant, a woman of elegantly penned letters with the practical skill of a seamstress. Initially she sets up shop in a dark rented room under constant threat from other drunken tenants. Soon Sylvia is drawn to join her, to share the workload and her first unexpected taste of independence.
At every hour I was keenly aware of each of the community’s duties (complex), hardships (many), prospects (limited), comforts (minimal) and disposable income (non-existent), yet they cared and shared and built together when possible. Charity and Sylvia worked late into the night to craft the indispensible clothes on each villager’s back that they proved their worth and were much loved both for that, and for who they were.
Each episodic insight lasts little more than a single, titled 12-panel page, so focussing one’s reception before the next, and the chapter pages are as witty as that opening proclamation.
I was gutted as it ended.
