Review by Booklist Review
In watery ink portraits and hand-scripted font, Murphy's sprawling rumination on Portland, Oregon's troubled history and present begins with the untimely death of River Phoenix and digs ever deeper into white supremacy and abuses of power targeting vulnerable young men. There's a lot to delve into, and Murphy makes some strong connections among Gus Van Sant's films, particularly My Own Private Idaho; the original founding of Oregon as a whites-only state; current issues of redlining and police brutality; and the rising white-power movement in the region. As the scope of the book's concern spirals outward, those connections aren't as clear cut, though they're no less potent, and the spectral, haunting artwork, rendered in quavering lines that bleed through the pages, underscores the unsettling web Murphy weaves. The deeply personal, intimate quality of the narrative, from the handwritten words to Murphy's experiences growing up in Portland in the '90s around some of Van Sant's muses, sometimes makes it feel like whispered rumors, but Murphy adds enough context and history to give it sturdy authority. Reading occasionally like true crime and raising provocative questions about masculinity, power, and art, this unique graphic novel critically examines queer cinema and pokes holes in the rosy, naive view of the Pacific Northwest as a progressive stronghold. Hand to readers who love unconventional narrative styles and falling down deep rabbit holes of information.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Murphy's piercing debut, originally self-published as zines, unfolds a disquieting narrative that opens with a rumination on the death of their childhood icon River Phoenix and progresses through a history of white supremacy in Portland, Ore. They document Phoenix's rise to fame in Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (set in Portland); the bisexual actor's close, erotically charged bond with Keanu Reeves; and his 1993 death by overdose. Murphy also suggests Van Sant "fancied troubled boys" and ingratiated himself with Reeves, Phoenix, and the sex workers he incorporated into his films. They move on to tell the life story of another youth befriended and filmed by Van Sant: white supremacist Ken "Death" Mieske--and this leads into a history of Mieske's role in the 1988 racial murder of Mulugeta Seraw and an exploration of the white nationalist roots of Oregon itself. The art is unnervingly intimate if not always technical masterpieces, and its often uncanny quality is appropriately unsettling. Murphy's contemplation of the intersections of pop culture, exploitation, and racial politics digs ever deeper, and the epilogue delivers a chilling analysis of Geraldo Rivera's infamous 1988 "Young Hatemongers" segment, which "became a catalyst for the 'coming out' of radical white supremacists." Murphy's elegaic treatment grants a sobering reflection on the depth and deadliness of American intolerance. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
