Jenna Cha

Did we need really proof that Lovecraftian horror can be narrated by someone other than nervous and erudite young white men from England or New England?

In 1887, a young woman named Eulalie Dubois, the daughter of a French trapper and his First Nations wife, tries to escape a dreary future that includes an arranged marriage and tending to the small cabin in the Ontario woods where she has spent her whole life. So she runs away from home, pinning her finances on a delivery commissioned by a mysterious man she meets at the local trading post. She sets off through the woods to the north in a snowstorm that takes on a life and increasing malevolence the farther she advances.

It doesn't take long before the cry of "Tekeli-li" tips those in the know that -- like the stories of Lovecraft and Poe before him -- this arctic journey is going to go awry in the most bizarre . . . and annoying . . . of ways.

I'm not a fan of Lovecraftian horror with its overwritten narration, gloominess, and vague sense of foreboding. And as if the ponderous nature of Eulalie's captions wasn't bad enough, the book comes to a screeching halt with eight pages of solid text, an extract from the journal of a nervous young white man writing his own Lovecraftian "heart of darkness" trek dreck. There's at least an attempt to tie all this tedious and ominous drivel into a slam against manifest destiny and white supremacy, but it gets blown about and lost in the blizzard of words.

Speaking of words, the cursive font seemed especially small and hard to read for my old eyes. I wonder if the younger generation of readers who didn't learn cursive in school will even bother trying to read this.

Lovely art, at least. I hope to see Jenna Cha given a shot at a better script sometime in the future.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Chapter One. the moon ladder -- Chapter Two. the world unfolding before us -- Chapter Three. minerva's owl -- Chapter Four. destroyer of ice + sickness of serpents -- Chapter Five. to hold all in one's hands… (más)