GRACE BOOK CLUB
Every Monday, Grace recommends a book by a woman writing literary prose.
LUCKY by Gabrielle Bell
Gabrielle Bell is everyday people. In her graphic chronicle of life as an underemployed twenty-something in Brooklyn, NY, Bell illustrates her drifting existence in small, minimalist panels. The collection begins in diary format. As she moves between studio apartments, stints as a nude model, an artist’s assistant, or an art teacher, Bell weaves an engagingly candid narration of the mundane. Her compositions are squiggles and slouches, the moments curbed to the small and essential. Moving in and out of her life are various friends and roommates and her boyfriend Tom. The effect is a kind of introverted suspense, very much like reading the blog of someone you’d like to get to know. Witty and winning, Lucky moves into longer format comics and trips through Bell’s escapist fantasies. Lucky is a book you can start anywhere and enjoy, or it can be read in a single gulp, either way it packs an understated punch.