Idle Days

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Description

Depressed and unmoored by his father's violent death, and drafted into the Canadian military to serve in World War II, Jerome has fled, taking refuge in a cabin his grandfather owns in a remote part of the countryside. But Jerome's troubles are only beginning. A strange dread fills the woods, and rumors of murders and ghosts cast his refuge in a sinister light. As Jerome struggles to come to terms with his father's death, he obsessively seeks to uncover the mystery of what, exactly, happened in his grandfather's house. Simon Leclerc's haunting, expressionistic artwork brings to life a quiet, layered, and deeply literary story from writer Thomas Desaulniers-Brousseau, in a graphic novel that explores with tenderness and insight the wounds opened with the loss of a loved one.

Reviews

"The author prioritizes quiet, everyday moments, with the outr material relegated to rare, but shocking, moments of hellish imagery, almost none of which needs to be read as happening anywhere but inside Jerome's head. What gives this nuanced story its sinister tone are Leclerc's astonishing illustrations, featuring loose-lined faces slathered in murky shades of red that look like firelight, or rust, or blood." --Booklist

"In Idle Days, writer Thomas Desaulniers Brousseau and artist Simon Leclerc traverse the connection between personal psychological distress and the ghostly sins of the past, in a backdrop of world-shattering dread that, in many ways, mirror what too many people are probably feeling these days--or at least, believe we are on the brink of being engulfed by, a triangulated descent into madness." --The Beat

"The characters and well-developed story are brought to vivid life by Leclerc's orange and red-tinged imagery as we see memories, real and false, of fires and get a glimpse of Jerome's own febrile depression. Both highly accessible and sophisticated, this is a graphic novel for newcomers and fans of the format, as well as for teen memoirists seeking inspiration." --School Library Journal

Author Bio

Thomas Desaulniers-Brousseau was born in the Montral suburb of Chambly. From 2012 to 2014, he drew and cowrote the webcomic Boire du mercure. His short stories have been long-listed in national contests. Idle Days will be his first published work. Simon Leclerc is a 26-year-old illustrator from Montral. He studied animation in Montral, then moved to California to pursue animation studies at Calarts. He draws, storyboards, animates, and art directs on various projects like video games, movies, books, and advertisements.