Rainbow Black

Thrash, best known for the YA graphic memoir Honor Girl, makes her adult debut with a gripping story about the Satanic panic of the 1980s and its impact on a New Hampshire family. Lacey Bond has always known she’s a lesbian, thanks in part to the freethinking encouraged by her hippie parents, who run a home daycare called Rainbow Kids. In 1990, when Lacey is 13, her parents are arrested and charged with sexual abuse. The complaints from victims’ parents include accusations of Satanism, though the physical evidence amounts to little more than some candles and crystals belonging to Lacey’s mother. During the lengthy trial, Lacey’s older sister, Éclair, is murdered, and their parents are blamed by the media, though no one is charged. As the harrowing, nonlinear story unfolds, the reader learns more about what led to the case against the Bonds and the details behind Éclair’s murder, all while Lacey attempts to find solace with her girlfriend Dylan, who is emotionally and physically abused by her bigoted family. Thrash convinces in her wrenching portrait of a community’s intolerance and the resilience of queer love. Readers will be stirred. Agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Mar.)