Narcissa: Grapnic Novel - Softcover

Tooks, Lance

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385503423 ISBN 13: 9780385503426

Publisher: Doubleday, 2002

Synopsis

From an artist whose work has appeared in more than 100 television commercials, films, and music videos, NARCISSA is Lance Tooks' beautifully drawn, compelling story of one woman's journey to self-discovery.

Narcissa, a talented and self-centered independent filmmaker, is collapsing under the strain of her critics--the "enlightened" people who are trying to get her to compromise her integrity. The stress is killing her--literally. Warned that if she tries to complete her current project she'll be dead in a week, Narcissa decides to escape the chaos that surrounds her--and fears the fears that threaten to overwhelm her--by traveling to Spain. As she encounters new people, places, and experiences, Narcissa gradually comes to a deeper understanding of who she is and what she is doing with her life.

Depicting Narcissa's journey with compassion and wit, Lance Tooks has created an episodic, thoroughly engrossing, exisential tale that will long resonate with readers.

About this title

About the Author:

LANCE TOOKS lives in New York and Madrid. He merely exists everywhere else.

From Publishers Weekly:

Narcissa, Tooks's protagonist in this inventive graphic novel, is a talented young black filmmaker. She's part of the "hipoisie," the free-floating scene of artists and intellectuals congregating in the new Afro-bohemia of Brooklyn's Ft. Greene neighborhood. Impressed with one of her shorts, an indie film company signs her to write and direct a feature. But it's a Faustian pact, complete with a devilish white producer who specializes in making "black" films that don't use black production people. He also fills his movies with as many ghetto-hipster, pimp, ho and gangster rap black cliches as it takes to get the ethnic point across-not exactly Narcissa's vision of her film. As if that weren't bad enough, she's been diagnosed with a serious illness and may be dying. In a moment of psychic liberation, she buys a ticket to Spain, leaving it all behind. Spain's beauty and history, an interaction with an elderly woman she meets and a powerful romantic interlude show Narcissa life's possibilities with a new, stark clarity. The book has its problems-the rants on black stereotypes seem pass‚; Narcissa's reveries on love can lurch into sappiness; and her Spanish hunk is a bit too perfect. But Tooks has written an affecting book that skewers the movie business while offering a black heroine driven by both work and the possibilities of love. Tooks's page layouts are inventive and his b&w drawings are stylish and expressive of underlying character as well as appearance.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0385503423
• ISBN 13: 9780385503426
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208