Backflash

A grief-stricken son discovers he can revisit his past in this wry graphic novel from American Book Award winner Johnson (Incognegro). Johnson sets a mordant tone early on—protagonist Devin tries to drop a rose into his recently deceased mother’s grave but instead falls onto her coffin (“My mother is dead. And I’m sitting on her”). A jobless washout lacking purpose now that his role as caregiver is finished, Devin hides in nostalgia rather than dealing with selling the family house. He’s rattled, though, when an especially vivid childhood memory seems to transport him back to his late-1970s youth. Through internet sleuthing he discovers an underground community of people who “backflash.” Devin strikes up an unusual bond with Marcos, a bodybuilder who trains him to use physical items with strong nostalgic associations to trigger backflashes. Though Devin simply hopes to mend his heartbreak, bringing adult perception to events he did not fully understand as a child has unexpected consequences—among them, that he picks up clues to track down his deadbeat dad. Well-paced art by Lieber (Who Killed Jimmy Olsen?) emphasizes the comedic aspect of Devin’s muddleheaded confusion and arrested adolescence without tipping into slapstick. The narrative ends abruptly, but Johnson raises psychological and philosophical questions that will linger in readers’ minds. Comics fans who dug Memento and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind should check this out. Agent: Gloria Loomis and Julia Masnik, Watkins/Loomis Agency (for Johnson)(Nov.)