The Lily Stories by Debbie Drechsler (No. 81)

The Lily Stories (1992 to 2002)

by Debbie Drechsler 

REVIEW BY CHARLES HATFIELD:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

There's a scene in Nowhere #4 which sums up Debbie Drechsler's gift for nuance. The scene happens in high school, as Lily, the new girl in town, joins several girls in the Art Club who are decorating the gym for a dance. Among the girls is Lily's estranged friend, Claire (at a cool distance), and Angela, who invites Lily to work with her. Also in the gym are some boys playing basketball, among them Dunham, a flirt with whom Lily has had a couple of tentative sexual encounters. Lily is acutely aware of Dunham's presence (Drechsler doesn't have to say so, she shows it), but Angela, intent on working, advises Lily to "just ignore 'em."

Emotionally and graphically, this scene is richly textured, full of feelings which remain tacit but nonetheless powerful. We know how important this activity is for Lily, socially, and how the nearness of Dunham hems her in; we also know of the tension between Claire and Lily, and how working with Angela gives Lily an out. Drechsler choreographs these relationships precisely, stressing the spaces between characters and catching the subtle give-and-take of words and silence.

The marvel of Drechsler is that this kind of attention can be found everywhere in her work, coupled with extraordinary artistic courage. The Lily Stories cover a startling range, from the harrowing disclosures of sexual abuse which haunt Drechsler's one book, Daddy's Girl (1995), to the cold melancholy of The Dead of Winter (Drawn & Quarterly Vol 2 #5, 1996), in which Lily has an abortion but cannot own up to her sense of loss. Drechsler's current series, Nowhere carefully charts the terrain of adolescence, showing us things about high school that we either never noticed or willed ourselves to forget. Armed with a great ear for dialogue, and a mesmerising style which balances contour and texture, Drechsler is already a master.

RICHARD SALA:

(from Xeroxed #4, 2004))

Daddy’s Girl as the book was eventually called - is a masterpiece of horror. And it’s all the more horrifying because it is true, and because the actions depicted, the innocence-killing, soul-destroying actions, are happening right now, everyday, all around the world. Now, the story itself is certainly nothing new. In fact, during the 1990s in the US there was so much attention to the awful facts of child abuse that it almost reached a level of hysteria.

However, what makes Debbie’s story so original and so chilling are two things: First, the structure is completely different from the way stories of child abuse are usually told. In those stories, the abuse is usually the “shocking” climax, or the “reveal” (as Hollywood types are fond of calling it these days), the buried secret, the motivation for a character’s actions or whatever. In Debbie’s story, the initial scene of abuse happens near the beginning and is depicted in an almost matter-of-fact manner. It’s an unexpected and horrifying scene, but then we follow the little protagonist through the rest of the night and into the next day. There is no sermonizing, no hysteria, no false self-righteousness. It is simply this little girl’s life - and that is dark, dark, dark.

The second factor is Debbie’s art for the story: The drawings of the characters with their big, hopeful (yet somehow doomed) eyes, and the topsy-turvy space they inhabit - floors rising to hit the reader in the eye, rooms which seem alive, not so much expressionistic as sea sick. Her drawings depict the feeling of innocence stolen, of a pure vision corrupted, of a sweetness that turns to nausea. They are heart-breaking.

BOOKS BY DEBBIE DRECHSLER:
Daddy's Girl, Fantagraphics Books, 1996
The Summer of Love, D&Q, 2002

FURTHER READING:

Debbie Drechsler at From Dusk Til Drawn