Home After Dark

Praise for Home After Dark by David Small:“Small is a master storyteller . . . his illustrations—emotive, kinetic, with a striking balance of realism and cartoon and particularly arresting facial expressions—speak volumes. Grappling with questions of identity and society, the story has the authenticity and ache of universal experience—filtered through the singular eye of a visionary. Powerful and profound.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)   “Small turns a deeply focused lens onto the isolation, loneliness, and relentless cruelty of male adolescence in this immensely powerful new work. . . . The illustrations convey the nuanced range of emotion of all things left unsaid. Spare and powerful, this is not to be missed.” —Booklist (starred review)   “[A] haunting coming-of-age tale. . . . Small again juxtaposes the horrors of an unhappy childhood with the bleak underbelly of 1950s and ’60s America illustrated with his signature fine pen lines and grey wash. . . . In depicting the toll of the harsh environment surrounding these lost boys, Small unearths an (almost) impossible tenderness.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)   “An important novel about adolescence and the search for identity. . . . Small is a masterful illustrator, with an incredible ability to establish his characters’ inner lives through physical gestures or facial expressions, conveying a kaleidoscopic style of storytelling reminiscent of filmmaker Terrence Malick. . . . [A] resonant and stirring work.” —Library Journal (starred review)“Home After Dark is incredibly moving. David Small is among the most masterful storytellers alive today.” —Gene Yang, author of Boxers and Saints “David Small’s extraordinary new graphic novel, Home After Dark, is the story of Russell, a teenaged boy abandoned first by his mother and then by his father. It’s about Russell’s adolescence but also everyone’s: learning who you can and can’t trust, the complexities of relationships with your peers, and figuring out who you are and the kind of person you want to be. Russell’s struggle to survive and not be crushed by the indifference or cruelty of the world drew me in. The drawings are gorgeous and expressive―Small’s facial expressions alone filled me with awe. A wonderful book and a great follow-up to Stitches.” —Roz Chast, The New Yorker cartoonist “Home After Dark is a poem-in-pictures, evocative and heart breaking and simple and pure. And I am not sure I will ever recover from it. Think of Lord of the Flies and The Catcher in the Rye joined as one, yet even more painfully honest. This is a haunting work of unfolding surprise. Few words, cinematic pictures, dazzling art.” —Jules Feiffer, author of the best-selling Kill My Mother Trilogy “As an adolescent, when I read Conroy’s Stop Time, or Weesner’s The Car Thief, or Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, the prose drew rich images of youth before my eyes, and defined me. David Small, in his sparsely written graphic novel, Home After Dark, has ingeniously created the reverse sensation. The silence of his masterful drawings has put words in my mouth―words that recapture the inchoate chaos of youth.” —Jack Gantos, winner of the Newbery Award and author of Hole in My Life “[David Small is] a master graphic storyteller who has certainly captured male adolescence in 1950s America. Having to think about dodging high school bullies every day sure resonated with me! And Russell’s sexual predicament was handled in a very original way.” —Robert Crumb, author of The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb