Booklist
Best known for creating the masked crimefighter the Spirit in the early days of comic books (see The Spirit Archives, v.1 [BKL Ag 00)]), Eisner also limns less heroic characters and deeds. Here, inspired by stories he heard while growing up, he depicts Jewish life in the New York City of his youth--specifically, how luck and coincidence converge in everyday life in ways that, in hindsight, seem miraculous. Those miracles range from a young immigrant outwitting a gang of bullies to the appearance of a mysterious, mute stranger who transforms the lives of everyone in a neighborhood by his very presence. In the most poignant story, a young couple, forced by physical disabilities to accept an arranged marriage, seems to find happiness, until another, deleterious miracle intervenes. Eisner, a master of pictorial storytelling, here relies, uncharacteristically, nearly as much on the captions as on the drawings and composition--a practice that emphasizes the fablelike nature of these tales set in a simpler era, when miracles seemed not only possible but essential. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
