Starred review from May 22, 2017
In a remote lighthouse lives a shy, deformed man, the son of the long-departed lighthouse keeper, who has never been off the tiny island. Fishermen bring him supplies. For entertainment, he looks up words in a tattered dictionary and tries to imagine the baffling outside world they describe. (Reading that an oboe is an “instrument with holes and keys,” he pictures something like a violin studded with door keys.) Then a curious fisherman sends him a note, and a crack of light shines into his boxed-in existence. This small, graceful story becomes a lush fairy tale through Chabouté’s stunning black-and-white art; he lavishes loving detail on the hermit’s fantastic inner life and his daily routines on the starkly beautiful island. Chabouté is justly celebrated in his native France, and this is widely regarded as his masterpiece. It’s a visually stunning humanist fable.
June 1, 2017
Born horribly deformed to a lighthouse keeper and his wife and orphaned by their deaths, Alone has lived in total solitude for nearly 50 years. His only knowledge of the outside world comes from the objects he occasionally discovers washed up on the shore of his island and an old dictionary, which he studies daily, allowing his imagination to run wild as he ponders the universe hinted at within. When a fisherman learns of Alone's existence, a chain of events is set into motion, which may just end our hero's hermitage. Multi-award-winning author/illustrator Chaboute (Moby Dick) presents a beautifully illustrated and carefully paced tale filled with equal parts sadness, humor, and tender moments of human connection that examines the powers of creative limitations, made all the more memorable for its minimal dialog. VERDICT Already an international best seller and selected for the prestigious Angouleme International Comics Festival in France, available here in English for the first time, this ultimately moving story about an unlikely and surprisingly inspiring protagonist is sure to be embraced by all readers.--TB
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from July 1, 2017
A deformed man lives out a solitary existence in a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. There he opens the dictionary at random every day and lets the words he finds engage his vivid imagination. When a sailor on the weekly supply boat leaves an unexpected message and the words of the lonely man's dictionary start showing an eerie connection to his circumstances, he begins to confront his solitude as he never has before. An official selection of the prestigious Angouleme International Comics Festival in its native France, almost 10 years ago, Alone offers a glimpse through a window into a vastly different visual-storytelling culture. This is a narrative style that affords 9 pages to pick, panel by panel, through the details of a single room, and in which the main character doesn't even appear until page 109. In a nearly silent story, Chaboute uses acute detail and tactile, sensual black lines to carve an expansive vision from confined spaces, and draws a deep emotional reservoir from simple actions, tiny moments, and small gestures. This kind of pacing and focus creates resonant, textured space, both physical and emotional, and turns a story filled with gothic trappings into something strikingly poignant.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)