Slow Storm [Paperback]

Danica Novgorodoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2008

A firefighter in rural Kentucky, Ursa searches for her place in life, struggling to meet her own expectations.  When a tornado hits her town, the ensuing chaos brings her world into sharp focus, somehow making everything clearer, and Ursa finds that she just can’t stomach the way her life is going.  It is then that she meets Rafi, an illegal immigrant whose life isn’t going the way he’d pictured it either.  Their encounter is the catalyst for Ursa and Rafi, who take different roads to the realization that wanting your life to change isn’t enough to make it happen. 

 

Slow Storm stands apart as a graphic novel with its literary heart and charged, atmospheric watercolor and ink artwork. The storm builds around the characters and inside them, and moments of violence and tenderness suddenly crack like lightning. With Slow Storm, Danica Novgorodoff takes her place as a talent to be reckoned with in the literary world.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–Ursa and her brother, both Kentucky firefighters, respond to reports of a burning horse barn in the aftermath of a fierce tornado. Frustrated by his constant jibes, Ursa traps him in the burning building, but, when he escapes, he unexpectedly blames it on Rafi, the undocumented Mexican immigrant who was living and working in the loft. Using somber watercolors, the artist works hard to create a sense of place, periodically breaking up the already slow-paced story with full-page evocations of the vast, tumultuous skies and the hills of Kentucky and Mexico. The line work is rough and has a certain degree of shapelessness, which works well with the nature scenes and the watercolors themselves, but which makes the characters occasionally seem clumsy. Where it works exceptionally well, however, is in the depiction of Ursa's rage-induced visions and the magical realism of Rafi's journey to the U.S., where policemen ride pigs and he has to climb over St. Peter's Gate to cross the border. Also compelling are the author's tone-clear rendition of Rafi's broken English and the strangeness of the protagonists' decisions. The atmospheric tone of the medium and the setting, combined with the weirdness of the characters' actions and their hallucinatory impressions, creates a curious, open-ended, and emotional reading experience.–Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH
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From Booklist

The success of any graphic novel or comic depends, to a great extent, on the unification of its words and art. Paradoxically, this is often more easily achieved when an artist can interpret the tone and ideas of a separate writer’s story and employ his or her artistic talent to reflect or match them. Here, writer-artist Novgorodoff has achieved a rare level of unification of story and art all by herself. In a tale of resentment and longing for human connection, her somber pictures veritably bleed with those feelings, nearly making the words redundant. Bookended by two huge, metaphorical storms, this is the tale of young firefighter Ursa, who weathers family and work trouble until a young Mexican, on the run from the police, winds up in her fire engine. The emotional highs and lows unwind lyrically, but slowly, requiring patience and concentration to stick with the story. Older teens going through difficult times will find a powerful expression of their moods within these pages. Grades 11-12. --Jesse Karp

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: First Second; 1st edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596432500
• ISBN-13: 978-1596432505
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,680,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Danica Novgorodoff studied painting and photography at Yale University. She has worked as a horse trainer in Virginia, an English teacher in Ecuador, an assistant to photographer Sally Mann, an artist review writer for galleries in Chelsea and SoHo, New York, and a book designer for many graphic novels and picture books. Her graphic novels SLOW STORM and REFRESH, REFRESH are published by First Second Books. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Marvelous Graphic Novel, September 24, 2008

By 

Satia Renee "Satia Renee" (Altanta GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Slow Storm (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Slow Storm by Danica Novgorodoff is perhaps one of the most ambitious graphic novels I've read in a while. The story is a simple one of a firefighter who saves the life of an illegal immigrant. However, what happens in one night and through small gestures is profound. The language is sometimes brutal then surprisingly shifts into poetic beauty in the time it takes to move from one panel to the next. The characters, their circumstances, though seemingly insignificant, sink beneath the skin until the reader can't help but have some compassion. And the story lingers in the sort of haunting way that one hopes a story will do long after the book has been left behind.

The images, with the soft watercolor washes of pastels, are evocative, especially the landscapes. Novgorodoff's confidence in her graphic abilities is evident as whole pages of panels go by without any text. And remarkably, this simple story that only lasts a few hours, not including some flashback details leading up to the encounter and one night, is dense with emotional significance, delineated wonderfully in the drawings.

Most remarkable of all, however, is that Novgorodoff has created a graphic novel that is completely interdependent. Without the words, though few and far between at times, the visuals would have less meaning. Likewise, the words, without the images, would simply read like an incomplete poem. By marrying the two together--graphic and novel--Novgorodoff has proven herself a mistress of this form and hopefully she will continue to add her voice and vision to more such efforts.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This shows great promise..., September 30, 2008

By 

Timothy Capehart "Review-a-holic" (Dayton, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Slow Storm (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Me: I review graphic novels for VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) and Library Journal. I enjoy reading most types of graphic novels (manga and old-school superheroes aren't my favorite) & I purchase them (or help to) for our library system. That said I would be the first to say that I claim no expertise.

This review: I liked this and as the review title indicates, I think it shows great potential. The artwork is watercolor wash, the painting is beautiful & moody, and the panels are cinematically arranged.

The writing is where this gets a little iffy. Ursa Crain (U.Crain on the back of her uniform-odd) is a firefighter in rural Kentucky. She seems to have a rocky relationship with her brother Grim who is also a firefighter. (We don't know why beyond the fact that he is jealous of her two years at college). Rafi is an illegal alien working at a horse farm. On the day after the Kentucky Derby, the barn catches fire during a thunder storm. Rafi is knocked unconscious and flashes back over his trip across the boarder. Ursa and her brother are fighting the fire and she locks him in a room...and that act of attempted murder (Grim escapes) is blamed on the missing Rafi. On watch for recurring fire, Ursa finds Rafi alive and tries to help him...it's all more than a little muddy, complicated by appearances of Saint Cristobal and Coyotes (Mexican criminals who get people over the boarder for large sums of money) with actual coyote heads and characters obviously controlled by an author--

THAT said, I still feel it deserves three stars and I hope the author continues to work (she will, she works for the publisher--and I love First Second's line of graphic novels and their willingness to try new artists/authors).

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Literary and ambigious -- misses the mark, October 2, 2008

By 

Margaret H. Bonham "skywarrior" (Montana, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Slow Storm (Paperback)

(What's this?)

I didn't know what to think after reading Slow Storm. I think it has some good qualities, but overall it feels heavy on characterization and light on story. If it were written as a non-graphic novel, it would be a short story -- or in my mind, a vignette. The overall description of the book pretty much sums up the entire story. No surprises -- nothing that gave me an epiphany or an "ah-ha" moment.

This book is more or less a mood piece. The art is dark and watercolor -- giving us a feeling of out of phase and dark. The dialogue doesn't quite fit the characters, especially at the beginning. The start to the story is slow and it really didn't hook until the fire in the barn. Even then, I felt something got sacrificed for the mood.

If literary is your bag, then perhaps you may find this story compelling. I found it had some interesting points, but overall, I think it lacked the hook necessary to keep me interested.