Sand Castle

A secluded beach becomes the stage for self-discovery for various strangers bound together during the most important moment of their lives in this graphic novel, which begins like a murder mystery, continues like an episode of the Twilight Zone, and finishes with a kind of existentialism that wouldn’t be out of place in a Von Trier film. An early morning vignette with a mysterious swimmer and a perching voyeur is soon interrupted when families arrive at the beach, bringing their cluttered lives with them. The geological, primordial beauty of the cove can’t soften the anger and sarcasm of the complicated generational relationships that land on it that morning—the spousal bickering, the teenage angst, as multiple visitors snipe, attempt to escape from each other, demand attention that never comes, and fixate on tiny quirks about their day that soon blossom into something to panic about. When the members of the group finally understand their situation, they find themselves challenged to cherish every moment of life that might be left for them after years of never living at all. Levy is Peeters’s collaborator on a film adaptation of the graphic memoir Blue Pills; together they take this idea to frantic, metaphoric heights. (May)