{"id":5943,"date":"2010-12-14T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=5943"},"modified":"2010-12-18T23:37:26","modified_gmt":"2010-12-18T23:37:26","slug":"you%e2%80%99ll-never-know-book-2-collateral-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/12\/14\/you%e2%80%99ll-never-know-book-2-collateral-damage\/","title":{"rendered":"You’ll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy C. Tyler<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-418-4<\/p>\n

In 2009 cartoonist Carol Tyler published the first of a proposed trilogy of graphic memoirs that examined the difficult relationship with her father Chuck, a veteran of World War II. ‘A Good and Decent Man’<\/em> explored three generations of the family dominated by a capable mother and a hard working, oddly cold yet volatile, taciturn patriarch. Events kicked off when after six decades of silence incipient frailty suddenly produced in her once-distant father a terrifying openness and desire to share war experiences and history long suppressed.<\/p>\n

As if suddenly speaking for an entire generation who fought and died or survived and soldiered on as civilians in a society with no conception of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, Chuck Tyler began to unburden his soul\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

This second volume takes up the acclaimed and award-winning generational saga with Carol coping with her own husband’s desertion, leading to her resuming recording her dad’s recollections of Italy and France (including the infamous Battle of the Bulge) whilst re-examining the painful, chaotic and self-destructive existence she made for herself due to his hidden demons.<\/p>\n

Now a single mother, Carol ponders her tempestuous past through a new lens. How much did her cold and terrifying father who was nevertheless a devoted, loving husband shape her mistakes? How can she prevent her increasingly wild daughter making the same mistakes and bad choices? Moreover, as her parents’ physical and mental states deteriorate, Chuck has become obsessed by a mystery that been forgotten since he came back from the conflict and needs Carol to solve it at all costs\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

With an increasingly critical reappraisal of the family’s shared experiences, Carol discovers how her own mother coped with dark tragedies and suppressed secrets (revealed in ‘The Hannah Story’<\/em> – an updated sidebar first published in 1994), gaining an enhanced perspective but still no satisfactory answers to the conundrum of her father.<\/p>\n

As she races to complete the self-appointed task of turning her father’s life into a comprehensible chronicle her parents are both declining visibly and her own life is becoming far too complex to ignore or withstand\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Delivered in monochrome and a selection of muted paint wash and crayon effects, the compellingly inviting blend of cartoon styles (reminiscent of our own Posy Simmonds but with a gleeful openness all her own) captures heartbreak, horror, humour, angst and tragedy in a beguiling, seductive manner which is simultaneously charming and devastatingly effective, whilst the book and narrative itself is constructed like a photo album depicting the eternal question \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How and Why Do Families Work?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Enticing, disturbing and genuinely moving, ‘Collateral Damage’<\/em> is a powerful and affecting second stage in Tyler’s triptych of discovery and one no student of the human condition will care to miss.<\/p>\n