Shadow Life

Starred review from January 4, 2021
This wry genre-bending graphic novel from Goto (the Half World series) delves into aging, independence, lost love, and mortality with a whimsy that doesn’t undercut its literary heft. Kumiko Saito, an elderly Japanese Canadian woman, runs away from an assisted living facility to reclaim her autonomy and embrace a solitary—but not lonely—life. Putting off her overbearing daughter and living on the bare essentials, Kumiko relishes swimming, simple cooking, and shopping on her own. Soon, however, Kumiko senses a presence encroaching on her solitude—a shadowy being that wants to take her somewhere she’s not ready to go. With plucky ingenuity, she holds the being off, but the experience opens her eyes to a Miyazaki-esque parallel world of quirky spirits and mystic creatures. The loose black-and-white line art by Xu, including interspersed wordless panels, perfectly captures the progression of Kumiko’s emotions from serenity to revelation to distress to determined defiance, as well as the narrative’s fantastical and surreal turns. Quiet sensitivity and humor shine throughout, lighting the bright triumph in one woman’s twilight.

Starred review from February 1, 2021
Commonwealth Writers' Prize-winning Canadian Japanese novelist/poet Goto (Half World, 2010) makes her stupendous graphic debut, in splendid artistic synchronization with Ignatz-nominated Xu. "It never felt right here," Kumiko thinks as she sneaks out of an assisted-living facility her daughters thought would be the best option for their septuagenarian, widowed mother. She's winnowed her life down to a single bundle--"but do the necessary things have to be so heavy?"--as she leaves everything else behind . . . except the shadow of death, which follows her out. Kumiko moves into a tiny studio and spends her days exactly as she pleases: swimming at the local community center, navigating the city buses, making friends (sometimes reluctantly) with neighbors, ignoring her increasingly worried daughters. When death attacks her, she insists "I'm not ready YET!" and impressively eludes the shadow. She survives for now, but forgetting, falling, and losing her way makes her realize, "Maybe I was too rash cutting off all my old friends," providing the impetus to pursue some important reconnections. Sprinkled with fabulism (a vacuum and salt can stop death), confronting racist history (Canada's WWII prison camps for Japanese Canadians), and questioning institutionalized eldercare, Goto's latest is an empowering, emotional tribute to defiant, independent, kick-ass old women living their best lives.

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