Exit Wounds
4 maj 2016 av Fredrik Strömberg BöckerRe-reading this book in preparation for an artist talk with Modan in a few day, and actually enjoying it more than the first time around. Modan has a way of writing real people doing real things, having real relationships, and you sense that outside of the panels they are actually living real lives. That’s a rare quality in comics, and the closest I can come to something that compares are the graphic novels by Anneli Furmark, which are sadly, so far, not available in English.
Exit Wounds is an enthralling little story and even though it is very evidently fictional, you can sense that Modan has used things from her own life and her own family in making the characters come to life. There is a strength in the resilience in them going about with their lives and getting to grips with their often mundane problems, as world politics and suicide bombings continue around them.
As someone from Sweden, which has not been at war for more than 200 years, trying to understand how it must be to live in Israel can be pretty difficult. But reading this gives me some sort of insight, the main feeling being that for the most part it’s all very similar, on a general, human level. And besides that, it’s a damn good story, one that would make a great film.
