When I first flicked through this one it looked like a short story collection. Then I started reading it and I realised – oooh, it’s all connected (albeit tenuously at times) by a single character. Beverly? Nope – a blonde teenage girl called Cara. There is a character called Beverly but I won’t give away any spoilsies here…
Still, it does read like a short story collection rather than a singular narrative despite the recurring characters. The two most memorable stories feature Cara and her disturbed little brother, Tyler. They first appear in The Lil’ King and you realise Tyler is a seriously messed up kid, particularly once you see his hallucinations. Nick Drnaso then abruptly and brilliantly shows Tyler as an adult in what might be foreshadowing and the preceding story was a dream or a memory and it’s even more shocking as you realise the violence he’s seeing might be his doing later in life. And then in the second story, King Me, we see middle-aged Tyler who’s no less troubled. Him walking the night streets in a balaclava is creepy enough but that final panel is shocking as, if he is the lunatic he appears to be, then that poor girl is lined up as his next victim.
What I like the most about Drnaso’s storytelling is how subtle it is. There’s no intrusive narrator, he never spoonfeeds the reader the story, and my impressions above could be interpreted completely differently by another reader. It’s astonishing that he’s as young as he is and crafting comics this sophisticated.
None of the stories were bad but some were less engaging. The Grassy Knoll is perhaps too understated, though Sal was an amusing kook, and Pudding, about two former high school friends who’ve grown apart, was meandering and a bit dull. Even then, there are aspects I appreciated, like the awkwardness and dynamic of the relationship that Drnaso captures so tangibly from the characters’ body language and dialogue.
The Saddest Story Ever told, about Cara and her mom watching a shitty sitcom pilot and some ads and then filling in a questionnaire was clever, and was indeed a dour portrait of Cara’s mom and the intrinsic sadness within her family (that might’ve contributed to Tyler’s mental problems), but overlong for what it was.
Virgin Mary was really good, showing small town politics when a teenage girl claims to have been assaulted by a Middle Eastern man – but is she telling the truth? Drnaso’s visual style is very gentle - lots of appealing bright colours, round figures, picturesque settings - so it’s especially jarring to see the sharp lines of the police artist’s sketch of Mary’s attacker.
On the art, Drnaso likes to have big pages full of detailed panels and lots of text which might look cumbersome but his writing is so strong that they perfectly complement one another. I love that his figures look like the kind you might see in safety guides on planes - it only adds another layer of shock to the subversiveness of his stories.
Fans of Drnaso coming to this after Sabrina won’t be disappointed by this earlier book and I think it’d also appeal to anyone after tales of compelling everyday drama. Beverly is buh-rill-yant – what an impressive new talent Nick Drnaso is!
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