Click image to purchase from Amazon
Beyond superheroes
THE SHINIEST JEWEL:
A Family Love Story
By Marian Henley
178 pp. Springboard Press/Grand Central $21.99
Reviewed by Gary Presley
We all know about graphic novels—okay, yes, they’re the 21st century comic book equivalent to Classics Illustrated, which were the literature crib notes of my generation. But the cover of The Shiniest Jewel, “a memoir written and illustrated by Marian Henley,” announces that the genre has moved from science fiction, fantasy, and superhero heroics toward something more serious.
The author is the creator of “Maxine,” an acerbic cartoon wherein a fan might read such bons mots as “Family reunions really make you sit back and appreciate those other 51 weekends.” With that, a reader might dive into The Shiniest Jewel and expect ironic distance and sardonic perceptions when reading about a turning-50 unmarried free spirit ending up married to a surgeon more than a decade her junior and the mother of a Russian orphan. After all, as Maxine says, “Four a.m. Feedings—They’re not just for infants anymore.”
There’s fun, sure, but despite the drawing panels laid out in the style of the Maxine cartoon, the content is serious, and perhaps even introspective. Henley worries about her sanity in seeking out a son to adopt. She worries about what others think. She worries more about what her parents will think, especially her father, a quiet, seemingly distant man who shows his love in ways she only begins to understand as her quest for a son continues.
“I had this in the navy ... When I was stationed in Alaska,” he tells her, giving “practical love” in the form of a cold-weather coat as she prepares for her Russian trip.
There are twists and turns, bureaucracies and bureaucrats, disappointments and despair before Henley holds her son and brings him home.
It’s a tale well-told, but it’s short. Given that most of the pages are cartoon panels—that means only 20, 30, or maybe 40 words on a page—Henley cannot dig down hard, dig down, dig down into the mud, to find and then sustain, the emotional depth, the passion, the anger, the despair that ricochet off the pages of most memoirs. How short? I read The Shiniest Jewel in an hour, pausing to drink a cup of tea and eat a bowl of fruit and yogurt.
Was it enough? No. And yes.
No, because I’m a curious sort, a reader who is intrigued by nuance and referential writing and back story. For example, why adopt a Russian child? Are there not children in the USA who are adoptable? Why a boy and not a girl? Why not a mixed race or minority child languishing in foster care or an orphanage?
But yes, it was also enough because how else might I ask Marian Henley to tell the story? She is, after all, a gifted cartoonist, which means much of the way she sees the world comes out as the ink tracks along the page.
There are affecting panels, drawings that reveal intense emotional turmoil. She reveals herself “stuck waiting” with sketches of shoes glued to the floor and a wall telephone feathered with spiderwebs. She worries that “My father might die while I was in Russia” with two panels, the first of which shows angels descending toward the earth and the other the author, child in arms, pleading with the angels to bring back her father.
Do I like it? Should you read it?
“It is what it is,” would be the response of the graphic novel enthusiasts. It’s short enough to read in one sitting, and it is—in its own pen-and-ink perceptive way - a book to be passed on to a friend who is thinking about adoption or to a woman who wants insight into a certain type of father.
Maxine says, “Maybe I’m asking for too much. How about peace or quiet?”
I know I’m asking for too much. Henley is a cartoonist because that’s who she is—a shy observer who erects a fence of sketches she can hide behind and throw sardonic bombs at the rest of us.
I suspect we should allow her to tell her story as she chooses.
Gary Presley resides in Springfield, Missouri, retired after a career spent primarily in insurance customer service. Although he once had a job writing news and advertising copy for a radio station, he his original work was published mostly in local newspapers, He only began serious study of the craft after entering and winning a regional essay contest.
Since then, his essays have appeared in publications ranging from Salon.com to Notre Dame Magazine to The Ozark Mountaineer.
His memoir, Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio will be published by the University of Iowa
Press in October 2008. You can follow his journey through postings to his blog.
Mail this page