Welcome to Marwencol

Starred review from November 1, 2015
In 2000, Hogancamp, an alcoholic loner with a talent for drawing, was severely beaten and left for dead outside a bar in Kingston, New York. He lived, but brain damage had robbed him of memories and forced him to relearn simple motor skills. He quit drinking and, as a form of therapy, began staging elaborate WWII scenarios at 1:6 scale in the make-believe Belgian town of Marwencol. His untrained photographs of his dioramasat eye level with the carefully posed and staged miniaturescaught the attention first of an arts-magazine editor, and then of a documentary filmmaker who produced the award-winning Marwencol (2010). This book, which interleaves striking reproductions of Hogancamp's art with his tragic story and the richly imagined narrative of his fictional town, is fascinating on many levels. While his history is compelling (the beating was prompted by his revelation of cross-dressing), his work is also art in its own right: painstakingly created (the models are rigorously aged for authenticity) and carefully composed pictures that, at a glance, might be mistaken for actual WWII scenes. The final 100 pages combine his stories and photos into graphic-novel-style tales informed by his obsessions and battle for healing, featuring notably strong women characters. Truly remarkable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)