Book - BookDetective

Name: The Lagoon

Author: Lilli Carre
Year: 2008
Rank:

Rating:

Original Rating:

Pop Rating:

Genres/categories:
Graphic Novels, Fiction, Fantasy, Horror

Purchase/reserch links:

LibraryThing

Goodreads

Amazon

ISBNs:
9781560979548
1560979542

A family is seduced by a mysterious creature's siren song that can be heard emanating from the lagoon after dark in talented young cartoonist Lilli Carre's first long-form work, and how each member reacts to the song in The Lagoon is the crux of the story. For the wise--or pixilated--Grandpa, the song reminds him that, in the time he has left, he must pause to respect, appreciate, and fear nature. The song hints at something that Zoey, the daughter, is too young to fully grasp. And the song lures the sexually frustrated mother, and eventually, her husband, into danger...

Carre experimented with nib pens and brushes while drawing this black-and-white graphic novel, giving the art a different feel from her previous, Eisner-and-Harvey-Award-nominated story, Tales of Woodsman Pete. The Lagoon was influenced by the films Creature from the Black Lagoon and Night of the Hunter, but reads more like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O'Connor or Carson McCullers. Rhythms--Grandpa's taps, the ticking of a metronome--are punctuated by silences that pace this "sound"-driven story. Older teen and adult readers are invited to imagine the enigmatic creature's haunting, ever-shifting tune as it reverberates through weedy waters, eventually escaping the lagoon to creep into windows at night.