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Lucky

By Henry Chamberlain
June 25, 2007 - 18:47

Gabrielle Bell's Lucky

A lanky young woman took me and the rest of her audience under her spell as she narrated a slide show of her comics during a recent book tour stop.  Her name is  Gabrielle Bell and she and her comics are very special. In a soft voice with a French accent, she spoke of free falling into the hand of a giant who took her prisoner until she was finally rescued by her dog. Mesmerizing stuff and good reason to pick up her latest book, Lucky, a collection of comics journal entries from the Big Apple.

To be callow and sarcastic in the morning and frightfully self-deprecating by the evening is all inextricably linked with the life of a young bohemian artist. Gabrielle Bell knows this well, so well that you can easily feel her pain and joy through her wry wit, the gold she spins from the harsh and stupid things in life. For instance, you don't have to live in New York City to have petty roommates but perhaps that hightened neurosis gives it an extra bite: Bell's roommate Angus, blank-faced and in overalls, requests her to allow the house cat access to her room so it can climb through her window onto the roof. If she does not comply, it will mean that the cat will continously meow and disturb the rest of the house. Bell goes along with it but no sooner does the cat make it to the roof than it's back scratching at her door to be let in again. Then another roommate emerges requesting that Bell stop letting the cat go through her window because it ends up going through his window. Mind you, all this is drawn in deadpan elegance. Yeah, the thin spare line rules as it brings to life this farce.

I do hope, for Bell's sake, that this was a made-up story but, as was my experience with passive-agressive roomies, it could very well be true. Whatever the case, it's probably the best moment in a book full of great moments. My only fault with the book might be that Bell is willing to see all sides of a character. A prefect villan as Angus is, later in the book, drawn sympathetically and we get to know about his struggles as an artist. A similar thing happens with a story about a tyrannical artist that Bell is an assistant for and who steals Bell's ideas. In the end, this villan turns out to have problems of her own and seems to make it up to Bell by mentoring her.
To defang a villan is not a good idea in creating a satisfying story but, having said that, Lucky remains for me a very charming and compelling book. Giving us a traditional story arc and such aren't necessarily essential in this case anyway. We're treated to see how Bell lives. We're allowed to tag along as Bell and her boyfriend, Tom, go through their seemingly bizzare rituals of apartment shopping for each other with each finding the other staying over each other's place to the point neither knows exactly if they really want to live separately or together or in which apartment but knowing happiness may still be around the corner in yet another apartment.

Imbued with more angst than even Kafka might endure, Bell's recollections of dealing with the choas and alienation of New York are definitely rewarding to read. Shielded by a blank-face, or poker-face, Bell manages to get through the tortorous poses she must hold as a life-drawing model. Better to pose nude than to return to another Orwellian low-paying factory job. Her rewards for her labor are problematic as well. Finding herself on the other side of the easel as an art student, she is dismayed by the utter lack of vision, or even logic, from her professor. Attempting to get some feedback from a cartoonist support group, she gets nothing but insults. But then she always has her true friends she can count on. A recounting of a road trip with Tom and a couple of other close friends is one of the best stories, on the positive side of things. Of New York in general, as an abstraction, Bell can only muster a hackneyed observation about Manhattan and all its glory. This girl is too busy living her life and we're lucky to be allowed along for the ride.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12