Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 07/01/2019 As WWI neared its end, the world began another war. From army camps to the world’s great cities, Brown presents the terrifying influenza pandemic of 1918 as a three-act tragedy. Brown follows the disease’s lightning-fast spread carefully, capturing both its large scale and daily effects on a full one third of humanity. Pertinent historic details and quotes heighten the drama, from the denial by authorities—“don’t even discuss it . . . talk of cheerful things,” advised the Philadelphia Inquirer—to the blind search for a cure based on a faulty nineteenth-century theory. Brown is comics’ premiere chronicler of historical catastrophes, and he knows that the story requires emotional investment. This he finds by, for instance, highlighting the common bravery of nurses and volunteers, and making keen visual choices: a double-page splash showing “the life of the city stopped,” and intimate panels depicting family corpses laid to rest “in a corner of the household.” A somewhat abrupt ending relating a scientist’s efforts in 1995 doesn’t detract from the urgency of the tale. - Copyright 2019 Booklist.