Read Something! _Mother, Come Home_ (Paul Hornschemeier)

Mother, Come Home
PAUL HORNSCHEMEIER
2009
unpaged
Graphic Novel / Literary Fiction

Summary

A boy and his father try to cope after the boy's mother dies. Mother, Come Home is a powerful exploration of how we can either overcome tragedy or be broken by it.

Appeal characteristics

• Frame: Told simply, from a child's perspective (although some comments are clearly those of an adult looking back) but nevertheless grapples with complex and difficult concepts
• Frame: Frequent and adept use of metaphor (usually visual)
• Plot: No happy ending
• Characterization: Main character is a child who has to deal with emotionally difficult situations
• ???: The art style is very clean; frames often just have a character or two in them and are not very "busy"

Other notes

• This book deals with death, mental illness, and suicide (though not in a particularly graphic fashion).
• My Noting: Books entry for this book: http://notingbooks.com/users/hbackman/readings/6062-Mother-Come-Home

Readalikes

• J. R. Ackerley, My Father and Myself? -- similar frame of a son looking back on a troubled relationship with his father, but honestly not much else that I can think of as similar; I don't know why this feels like a good readalike to me