Their silent meals around the dining room table broke my heart. The awkwardness between Lester and Ken is both sad and very realistic, neither one comfortable with the other, both still grieving for Claire, Lester’s mother, but unwilling or unable to share their pain with the other. Lester, sent to live with his Uncle Ken on the farm after his mother’s death from cancer, spends most of his time escaping into his super hero fantasies and reading (and attempting to draw his own) comic books. Volume 1, Tales from the Farm, centers on young Lester Papineau. They are not cheerful stories but they are beautifully, if somberly, told. Set in the rural Southwestern Ontario farming community of Essex County, the book is a compilation of three inter-connected volumes, dealing with the personal stories of three of its residents. Honestly, that is not something I ever anticipated being able to say about a graphic novel but here you have it.
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