Read This: Refresh, Refresh

Earlier this week, I learned that The Paris Review had put up a podcast of Benjamin Percy reading from an essay in the most recent issue, “Me vs. Animals.” And it reminded me that I’ve been wanting to recommend Refresh, Refresh, a comics adaptation of the title story from Percy’s second collection… or, rather, Danica Novgorodoff’s rendering of a screenplay by James Ponsoldt based on that short story into a graphic novel.

(Longtime Beatrice readers may remember Percy’s guest appearance when his first collection was published.)

In either version, it’s a powerful story about the anger and frustration felt by teenage boys whose fathers have been sent to Iraq to fight in the war, and the lengths these boys will go to to fill up the empty spaces in their lives. Novgorodoff’s artwork adds an effective emotional subtext; as she told Comic Book Resources, “I wanted to show a clear progression, paralleling the increasing sense of violence with the passing of the seasons.” She also brings a bit more immediacy to the story; Percy’s prose version is exquisite, but it does have a sense (or it did to me) of reflection and retrospection, while the graphic novel feels more like an unfolding. But I encourage you to read them both and see what you think.

27 February 2010 | read this |