Elise and the New Partisans

This stimulating graphic autofiction from French singer-songwriter Grange, best known for her protest anthem “Les Nouveaux Partisans,” chronicles a young woman’s radicalization in Paris in the 1960s and ’70s. Drawn by Grange’s esteemed cartoonist husband, Tardi (Farewell, Brindavoine), the account follows Elise, a composite character based on Grange and her fellow activists. In the book’s opening pages, Elise is scorched nearly to death by an accidental explosion of Molotov cocktails in 1972. The narrative then rewinds to her youth in Lyons, when she’s scandalized by the government’s brutal mistreatment of Algerian immigrants. She joins in the 1968 student uprisings and is beaten by police at a protest. Unlike the stereotypical bourgeois radical, Elise and her “comrades” flee the shelter of their university, work in factories and with immigrants, and fight for quantifiable changes. When Elise proclaims that “the class war continues!” it lands as more than just a slogan. Tardi provides lively and grungy art, but the dogmatic tone flattens the contours of Elise’s story even at its most dynamic plot turns (a short prison term, going on the run), and the narrative plays coy with some specifics (where were those Molotov cocktails intended to land?). Still, it’s a dramatic and defiant raised-fist of a story. (Sept.)