Secret Life by Theo Ellsworth and Jeff VanderMeer, illustrated by Theo Ellsworth [in Booklist]
From the cover alone, it’s clear Theo Ellsworth’s visuals are unique, striking, and surreal. A sense of witnessing something unrecognizable resonates throughout, with bizarrely stylized images of people, beasts, and scenes surrounded by intricate backgrounds that might induce trypophobia in some. And yet, self-taught artist and award-winning graphic creator Ellsworth’s adaptation of bestselling Jeff VanderMeer’s 2004 short story of the same name might prove all too familiar by book’s end.
A five-story building stands bordered by a forest, shopping mall, fast good outlets, and an empty road into darkness. “The building housed hundreds of people,” although what actually happens within seems initially incomprehensible.
The floors are segregated; the second floor goes silent. The second and third floors brutally, bloodily colonize the first and fourth floors. The fifth floor is only accessible with a special key. “The custodians in the basement paid no heed.”
A manager and his pen, night and day janitors, rotting corpses, a woman who can speak to mice, mice who speak English, a weeping mimic – each has an (isolating) story. Corporate culture, capitalism/consumption, social hierarchies, and domination notwithstanding, only a vine flourishes here.
Review: “Graphic Novels,” Booklist, September 15, 2021
Readers: Adult
Published: 2021
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