Gramercy Park

Description

What could possibly connect two solitary beings--a former Opera de Paris dancer and an elusive man whom everyone fears? New York, 1954. On the roof of an apartment building, a young woman patiently tends to her beehives and seems to be longing for someone or some thing. In the building across the street lives a kingpin of crime, isolated from the world, except for one mysterious weekly outing. They don't know each other, but they can see one another. Between them- the void, a police car, and a private fenced-in park under lock and key. Gramercy Park is one of those rare graphic novels that defies the obvious and cliched, allowing the reader the freedom to wander in this mysterious adventure and get lost in the poetic script of Timothee de Fombelle and embrace the delicate drawings and muted colors of Christian Cailleaux. Nominated for a 2019 Angoulame Award.

Timothee de Fombelle is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and professor of literature in France. He is best known for his novels Tobie Lolness (which has been translated into twenty-nine languages) and Vango, which was chosen to represent France for the IBBY Honour List. He has received about twenty awards, including the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire and the Saint Exupery Prize. Gramercy Park is his first graphic novel. Why comics? "Because I felt that this story needed air, I wanted it to be less of a novel, it was a story based on the silence of these two characters who observe each other," says the writer. Christian Cailleaux is a graphic novelist, illustrator, and extremely poor trumpet player, just like the hero of his graphic novels The Imposters. He is an active traveler, having lived for fifteen years alternately in Africa, Quebec, and France. Between creating graphic novels, designing a front cover for a novel or a jazz record sleeve, he enjoys telling stories about setting sail for unpredictable encounters in far-flung climes.

"What makes Gramercy Park exceptional is the way that de Fombelle takes the cliches of the noir genre and uses these surfaces as a step-ladder to depth. The personal dramas of the characters not only circle around the noir circumstances, but contain levels of their own that are insinuated in dialogue and explored in revelatory moments." --The Beat "Tight and clever, scattering just the right amount narrative breadcrumbs to keep the reader involved. Author de Fombelle mixes intriguing characters and thoughtful dialogue that rope you in. I had planned, in fact, to just read a few pages at a time. But at one point, about halfway through, the creators had me and wouldn't let me go. " --Pop Culture Squad "Evocative, lyrical, literary, yet exceptionally lucid and accessible...a graphic novel you can hand to people who are being snooty about comics, but which is equally inviting and invigorating to those of us who live and breathe these marvels." --JT Lindroos, Euro Comics Roundup