Minor Miracles: Long Ago and Once upon a Time Back When Uncles Were Heroic, Cousins Were Clever, and Miracles Happened on Every Block

This powerful graphic novel confirms Will Eisner as a master of the genre.

In this classic graphic novel, Will Eisner?s pen cuts an expansive swath through all aspects of the human condition. A powerful portrayal of Jewish life in the New York City of Eisner?s youth, Minor Miracles encourages similar introspection as it examines how luck and coincidence converge in everyday life in ways that, in hindsight, seem miraculous.

Best known for creating the masked crimefighter the Spirit in the early days of comic books (see The Spirit Archives, v.1 [BKL Ag 00)]), Eisner also limns less heroic characters and deeds. Here, inspired by stories he heard while growing up, he depicts Jewish life in the New York City of his youth--specifically, how luck and coincidence converge in everyday life in ways that, in hindsight, seem miraculous. Those miracles range from a young immigrant outwitting a gang of bullies to the appearance of a mysterious, mute stranger who transforms the lives of everyone in a neighborhood by his very presence. In the most poignant story, a young couple, forced by physical disabilities to accept an arranged marriage, seems to find happiness, until another, deleterious miracle intervenes. Eisner, a master of pictorial storytelling, here relies, uncharacteristically, nearly as much on the captions as on the drawings and composition--a practice that emphasizes the fablelike nature of these tales set in a simpler era, when miracles seemed not only possible but essential. Gordon Flagg
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