Hummingbird Heart
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A deeply emotional visual representation of a teenager’s confusion
Still reeling from the death by suicide of his drug-addicted father, Travis moves in with his grandmother to become her caretaker as she battles cancer. Meanwhile, he tries to live a typical teen life of pulling pranks, occasional shoplifting, dating, and endless drives through the twisting backroads of Central Massachusetts with Nirvana’s Nevermind as the soundtrack. When the police intervene after a prank backfires, the boys realize that their time as children is rapidly disappearing and they may never fully understand each other as they move apart.
After his Lynd Ward Prize-winning graphic novel, King of King Court, explored the power that parents hold over their children’s emotional lives, Travis Dandro employs his signature dream imagery and crass humor to tell the story of teenage independence and resilience as he prepares to head off to art school.
Hummingbird Heart is a detailed and stylish account of a time of great uncertainty. Dandro’s densely crafted pages create a deeply emotional experience as his story swings from character confrontation to finely wrought domestic detail—a slapstick cafeteria-destroying brawl gives way to the beautifully rendered flight of the impossible hummingbird.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With a knack for breathtaking still lifes that accentuate the melancholy, Dandro follows King of King Court with a graphic memoir framing his teen years in the 1990s spent caring for his ailing grandmother. Dandro is a comics-loving prankster who would rather smash pumpkins with his friends Zung and Joey than deal with the death of his incarcerated addict father. But he's also a responsible kid, and his Nana is a feisty, foulmouthed confidante. When she dies after refusing chemo for cancer, Dandro gets into fights and struggles with his next steps. "At least you had a grandmother! I've never even met mine!" Zung shouts, before describing his family's humiliations as immigrants. Nana, along with Dandro's long-deceased grandfather, becomes a spirit guide of sorts, pulling up in his dreams in a muscle car and cruising beneath a star-strewn sky to their final resting place. Dandro's flair for detail offers windows into the harshness all his characters face; while the story elements are simple—grief, teen angst—the telling is visually layered. The art luxuriates in long pauses and aching suburban landscapes; readers will find themselves lingering over drawings that make even the Sears parking lot portentous. Dandro captures the ache of adolescent loss through the eyes of this crude-talking but deeply sensitive teen.
