Pachyderme

Description

A sci-fi tale which has all the echoes of a David Lynch film. Almost cinematic in style, in the breathless opening to this graphic novel we get a traffic jam due to a wounded elephant; a blind pigkeeper; an alien-looking grey baby; a cavalier and alcoholic skirt-chasing surgeon; and a beanpole of a Swiss secret policeman. Our heroine, Carice, walks from her car through the woods, as if in a trance, to a hospital to visit her diplomat husband, indisposed from a car accident. Her goodbye note, which she intends to deliver in person, is in her purse. The hospital is vast, remote, and foreboding, filled with suitable loonies. The book's first third ends with Carice waking an apparently dead body in the morgue with her whistling. Chopin? the body asks. Carice nods. We learn of her too-early marriage, her dashed dreams as a concert pianist, and in the course of conversation realize that the aged cadaver she's talking to is her future self.

Frederik Peeters has been nominated at Angouleme in the best book category five times. The publication and success of Blue Pills firmly put him on the map as one of the most important graphic novel authors tackling difficult topics with sensitivity. He is constantly looking to challenge himself with projects that are both important and hugely imaginative from Blue Pills, Lupus, RG and Koma, Sandcastle and Pachyderme. He lives with his wife and daughter (whom Blue Pills was based on) in Geneva.