Brian McDonald (1) (1965–)

Do stories about death hold the keys to teaching us how to live? Authors, McDonald and Cypress, certainly think so and cleverly teach us how through a graphic novel with illustrations and writing that takes you deep into the vantage point of learning from the underworld. Myths, classic literature, and movies are utilized as literary examples to teach the elements that make up great storytelling. The reader investigates dark elements from the land of the dead in Gilgamesh, Moby Dick, and Casa Blanca, to name a few, and learns what the dark sides and the inspiring sides of these stories teach us about our humanity. The authors, who have backgrounds in narrative arts, teach not only how to write stories well, but admonish the writer to not take this responsibility, of shaping beliefs through stories, lightly. This book has been recommended as a potential textbook for college Literature and Writing courses because of its succinct way of teaching the elements of storytelling through famous examples. The graphics also instill a sense of doom and death but also have the ability to inspire the reader and take them back into light and life. This book is meant for mature audiences, such as mature young adults and adults, because of its discussion of philosophically dark themes and themes of death/loss. Otherworldly, yet filled with powerful advice about living a life worth writing, some will find this book more spiritual than philosophical or informational.… (plus d'informations)

The problem with this book for me is that if you read it as a reincarnation skeptic, it looks a lot like a bunch of white male characters appropriating the suffering of slavery and the rape of Nanking for their middle-class mid-life crises. If you buy into the reincarnation conceit, then you have the optics of white guys getting a free pass for all the cultural appropriation they want.

And we're asked to sympathize with the slave owner who nobly decides to free his slaves once he is dead and cannot profit from them anymore??

AWKWARD!

p.s., Even more awkward:

Here's a mind bender. When I wrote my review, I followed the Goodreads author link to Brian McDonald and was presented with the image of a white New York Times writer, and it seemed odd that he'd even write this story. So I just did some additional research and apparently that link is in error. This is the actual author: https://writeinvisibleink.com/. I feel like knowing McDonald is African American should change how I process the story, but so far it hasn't. The surface read remains a bunch of white guys #winning. I am now hyperconscious, however, of the biases I held and the assumptions I was making while I read the book and wrote my review. I'll be dwelling on this and will have to see where it leads.

By the way, I submitted a notice about the author mix-up and it has since been fixed on Goodreads.… (plus d'informations)