I'm going to review this series as a whole and not separately, because you cannot take one book away from the trilogy. I have never been a huge fan of graphic novels, or sports related stories in general. This trilogy is both, a graphic novel that centers around hockey, specifically the Toronto Maple Leafs, so I didn't know how engrossing it would be or if I made the right choice buying it. It was lying around my house for a while before I finally picked it up and started reading...when suddenly I was on to the second volume, then the third, then I was online looking up more of Jeff Lemire's work...
Wow. What a fantastic series this turned out to be. I was fully immersed in the lives of those characters that I was surprised to get to the last page. The illustrations and artwork were so profoundly beautiful, I could feel my heart clench at a simple expression drawn on a character's face, a simple sigh, a simple bow of the head.
The first book portrays the lives of Lester, a young boy who has just lost his mother to cancer, and his Uncle Ken. Lester moved in with his uncle after his mother's death, but can't seem to get along or find any common ground between them, leaving their relationship awfully strained and awkward. All of which is beautifully portrayed through the illustrations, making you breath the awkwardness and tension between them. Lester then befriends Jimmy, an older, childlike man, who runs the local gas station after suffering an injury, which ended his professional hockey career. Lester and Jimmy love to play pretend, in which Lester is a superhero out to save the world from aliens. Lester finds he can be himself around Jimmy, even sharing with him the comics he's drawn.
The second book talks about two brothers Lou and Vince, primarily through a series of flashbacks that Lou is having, in which so much regret is depicted. This, for me, was the all time favourite of all three volumes. The artwork was so powerful and expressive that it almost brought me to tears. So many emotions, so many provocative moments. Jeff Lemire has outdone himself with this one. The artwork is very simple, black and white drawings, with very little dialogue. You could go pages without a single word written or spoken by any of the characters, but the illustrations alone would tell the story. The one page that really stuck in my mind is a series of panels, in which Lou and Vince and his son Jimmy are watching hockey on TV and you can tell the years passing, by the way they were aging from one panel to another and the way Jimmy was getting bigger and bigger, until you reach the last panel where it's just Lou and Vince watching Jimmy playing on TV. Absolutely brilliant portrayal of time passing, without having to spell it out to the reader that the years are, in fact, going by.
Another example of the brilliance of Lemire's artwork was in the beautiful depiction of Lou meeting Vince's girlfriend for the first time. You immediately know what will happen just from their facial expressions upon meeting. You can tell. You can see it from the very beginning just by that one moment they share. And yet, when it happens, it doesn't make it any less disappointing and does not take away the shame and regret that accompanies that incident.
Then there's the third volume that illustrates the life of nurse Annie Quenneville, who is going around working her shifts. The one shift the comic focuses on is Lou's, where we find out that the nurse looks after Lou, who has gone deaf, has a drinking problem and barely speaks. She also looks after her own grandmother, who has a story of her own that we end up reading about through flashbacks and memories.
Beautiful novels, all connected and interconnected in the most incredibly subtle ways making it look effortless. All the stories come together, until it climaxes right where we started - with Lester and uncle Ken.
Wonderful, wonderful series. I am so glad I bought it, and I feel privileged to have experienced this sort of brilliant work.
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Top reviews from other countries
Sam Quixote
Love, life, death, and hockey
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 10, 2010
Ben B
One of the most human comics I've ever read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 12, 2023Amazon Customer
I LOVED this graphic novel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 9, 2020
