Come Again

Starred review from May 21, 2018
This lyrical, lushly drawn graphic novel takes place in Haven Station, a fictional hippie commune in the Ozarks in the 1970s, with alternating story lines set at the opening and close of that decade. Communal living is falling out of fashion, but a tight group of true believers hang on, including Haluska, a restless woman with a young son named Jake. Haluska is having an affair with the husband of a longtime friend, who is also the father of her son’s closest playmate. The lovers meet in an old mining tunnel in the woods, and when they are apart, the dark of its caverns haunts Haluska’s dreams. When Jake and his best friend go exploring in the tunnel, the secret begins to undermine the community in unexpected and tragic ways. Initially grounded in the day-to-day drama of the commune, the tale slowly evolves into magical realism, and Haluska turns heroic as she struggles to set things right. The offbeat village, its inhabitants, and the surrounding forest and countryside are rendered in fluid, magical brushwork tinted in the colors of a sunrise and filled with mysterious shadows and crannies. Powell illustrated the bestselling nonfiction March trilogy authored by Congressman John Lewis, and this enchanting solo effort reveals even greater depths to Powell’s gift for visual storytelling and creating appealing, human characters.