Black Cohosh
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jun 17, 2025
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- $14.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A heartfelt, comedic coming-of-age debut from a bright new talent
When we meet Eagle Valiant Brosi, he is a long-haired commune kid, bullied by other kids,
teachers, and his neighbors. And because of his speech impediment, Eagle observes
silently and often. Mom—a classic earthy, free spirit prone to discursive lectures on natural
medicine and the efficacy of certain plants—is the only one who really cares. So Eagle lets
others talk and talk and talk, revealing their true natures and selfish (sometimes even
selfless) motivations.
In Black Cohosh, Eagle pieces together the puzzling and hurtful things he has been told as
he takes his first, tragic steps into adulthood. While things may seem grim, Brosi’s
drawings are loose and limber, stretching and falling across each page. His cast of hippie
archetypes come with iconic thatches of hair, bushy beards, and scrawny, gesticulating
arms. Black Cohosh is a captivating debut from a natural storyteller with the expert timing
of a veteran comedian and the soothing empathy of a death doula.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Brosi's unsparing yet mirthful debut, a teenager with a speech impediment navigates the peculiar indignities of commune life and public school. Eagle is teased at school for his unusual name, his long ponytail, and especially his acute speech impediment (represented in speech bubbles as gnarled, indecipherable runes). Teachers regard him with open hostility, and a beating at the hands of two classmates triggers a seizure that lands him in the hospital. Home offers little refuge. His family resides in a hippie commune that zealously polices its back-to-the-land ethos. His mother's contentious use of bone meal in the vegetable garden precipitates a "consensus meeting" where scandal erupts over the discovery of a fast-food wrapper. While his bushy-bearded father obsesses over the young women at the college where he teaches, Eagle's softhearted mother imparts wisdom through lessons on native plants but sometimes lapses into unwieldy metaphors ("When you grow up, you might become attracted to some hot young green bean. But it won't take care of you like a big, ugly bean will"). Over a loosely structured narrative, Brosi's sparse, knobbly pen-and-ink illustrations, which recall 1970s pamphlets and Shel Silverstein, mine blunt humor from the self-absorbed adults surrounding Eagle. Brosi's thorny coming-of-age story hoes a tough row between tragedy and comedy, to disarming effect. It feels like a discovery that comics fans will be talking about for years to come.
