Walk Me to the Corner

Furmark (Red Winter) meditates on love, lust, and longing in midlife in this evocatively drawn and elegantly narrated outing. Together for 23 years, journalist Elise and her husband Henrik are “uncommonly happy” until Elise strikes up a long-distance text relationship with Dagmar, a doctor she meets at a party. Dagmar is also married, to a woman with whom she has children. Elise and Dagmar treat their affair like a force of nature, and after Elise tells Henrik about her attraction, Henrik begins an affair with a grad student. Elise is deeply hurt, and the two stumble toward divorce. Meanwhile, Dagmar has no intention of leaving her family. Elise’s lack of insight about her own betrayal of Henrik may frustrate readers, but there’s a trenchant realism here in the embracing of contradictions. “When I was young, I saw older people like they were some sort of joke,” Elise confesses to her grown son.“ But... when you’re older, it turns out the drama is just as big.” In jewel-toned, mixed-media illustrations, Furmark paints moody landscapes that mirror Elise’s internal churn. The result’s a complex, nuanced portrait of heartache. (Mar.)