Nicolas (A Petit Livre)
"Nicolas is a moving debut work by Quebecois cartoonist Pascal Girard. The book is presented as a series of short autobiographical vignettes that take place after the childhood death of his younger brother, Nicolas, who passed away in 1990. Each episode taken from Girard's childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood offers a glimpse into his multifaceted and ongoing process of reckoning, as he struggles to reconcile the magnitude of this tragedy with the minutiae of his daily experience of loss. Deftly sidestepping the cloying sentimentality and abject self-pity that might seem endemic to such a personal project, Girard treats his subject with a spare line and a refreshingly matter-of-fact tone that prove to be all the more moving in their honest simplicity. Ultimately, Nicolas unfolds as a delicate portrait of the many faces of mourning, identified with surprising humor and pathos by an artist who knows them intimately"--Publisher's web site.
