Secret Life

Theo Ellsworth, Jeff VanderMeer

$49.95

Hardback

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English

Drawn and Quarterly
28 September 2021

Graphic novels: true stories & non-fiction

To the west: trees. To the east: a mall. North: fast food. South: darkness. And at the center is The Building, an office building wherein several factions vie for dominance. Inside, the walls are infiltrated with vines, a mischief of mice learn to speak English, and something eerie happens once a month on the fifth floor. In Secret Life, Theo Ellsworth uses a deep-layered style to interpret Nebula Award winning author Jeff VanderMeer s short story. What emerges is a mind-bending narrative that defamiliarizes the mundanity of office work and makes the arcane rituals of The Building home.

When his manager borrows his pen for a presentation, a man is driven to unspeakable acts as he questions the role the pen has played in his workplace success. The despised denizens of the second floor develop their own tongue, incomprehensible to everyone else in The Building. A woman plants a seed of insurgency that quickly permeates every corner of the building with its sweet, nostalgic perfume.

With deft insight, Secret Life observes the sinister individualism of bureaucratic settings in contrast with an unconcerned natural world. As the narrative progresses, you may begin to suspect that the world Ellsworth has brought to life with hypnotic visuals is not so secret after all; in fact, it s uncannily similar to our own.

By: Theo Ellsworth, Jeff VanderMeer
Imprint: Drawn and Quarterly
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions: Height: 222mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781770464032
ISBN 10: 1770464034
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 28 September 2021
Recommended Age: From 16 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Theo Ellsworth is a self-taught artist living in Montana. His previously published comics include Capacity, The Understanding Monster, Sleeper Car, and An Exorcism. The New York Times once called his work, Imagination at firehose intensity. He has been the recipient of the Lynd Ward Honor Book Prize and an Artist Innovation Award. He loves creative collaboration, cooking, and making family folk art with his kids. He is constantly making invisible performance art in his head that no one will ever see. Jeff VanderMeer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Reach Trilogy, the first volume of which, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland. His novels set in the Borne universe are being adapted for TV by AMC, and Netflix has optioned his next novel, Hummingbird Salamander, for film. Called 'the weird Thoreau' by The New Yorker, VanderMeer speaks and writes frequently about issues relating to climate change as well as urban rewilding. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, on the edge of a ravine, with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, and their cat, Neo.

Reviews for Secret Life

With his meticulously drawn, uncanny comics, Ellsworth proves a fitting and unnerving match to mine this eerie, parable-like short story by VanderMeer... This bizarre, fantastical vision will charm art comics and surrealist lit fans alike. Publishers Weekly. From the cover alone, it's clear Ellsworth s visuals are unique, striking, and surreal... Corporate culture, capitalism/consumption, social hierarchies, and domination notwithstanding, only a vine flourishes here. Booklist. In this mind-bending narrative, all kinds of weird things are happening: mice can speak English while lower-caste workers on the second floor develop their own language... It s an allegory about work life like no other. NOW Magazine