Misery of Love

Colonial history haunts this stunning, spectral-looking graphic novel, a spiritual sequel to the author’s Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures.

In School of Misery, a spiritual sequel to the acclaimed Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures, Yvan Alagbé continues his interrogation of race and family in modern France.

The book focuses on the dream-like memories of a woman named Clare, who is spending time with her family for her grandfather’s funeral. Alagbé shifts between narratives of the family, all haunted by the legacy of France’s colonial subjugation of Africa.

In School of Misery, Alagbé works in stormy grayscale washes, using comics, as he puts it, as “a sacred dimension which celebrates, questions and perpetuates life.... I believe that life is not damnation but grace.”

This is another ambitious, devastating masterpiece from one of France’s best contemporary cartoonists.