The story then jumps back to Jean-Christophe’s childhood, free of epilepsy, when he was full of energy and had the world at his feet. He is portrayed as oafish, overweight, full of scars from all his falls and his mind seems to be in a fog. At the beginning of the book, he is introduced as an adult. Something that is conveyed so well in this book is the impact that epilepsy has had on the life of Jean-Christophe himself. You join them in their huge disappointments when the next “miracle cure” (healers, zen, macrobiotics, Swedenborgian spiritualism…) don’t work. Drawing monsters as metaphors for epilepsy shows just how negatively he sees the condition and how much of an impact it has had on his life.Īs a reader, you can feel the desperation the author’s parents felt to find a cure for this illness that not only took over their son’s life but in turn took over family life. It becomes apparent very quickly in the book is about the emotional burden epilepsy had, and still has, on the author himself. Each frame takes the reader deeper into the mind and emotions of the writer and the family’s journey.
Each drawing says more than a thousand words ever could. Throughout the book, the images are as important as the text. Epilepsy changed his life and his family’s life and he wanted this to come across in his book. In an interview with Time Magazine, David B tells of how he didn’t want to create a ‘reconstruction of events’ when writing his book. It soon becomes obvious that this format, with so few words and so many pictures, beautifully conveys a myriad of emotions and feelings as well as a family’s story as seen through the eyes of a child. At first the idea seems quirky, if a little strange, and there is a feeling that the book will be more style than substance. Epileptic has been written in the style of a graphic novel. Unlike all autobiographies I have ever seen or read, it’s more than just vast amounts of copy with a few photos thrown in the mix. One of the most interesting and striking things about this book is its format. Epileptic makes the entire collection available in English for the first time. It was written by David B, born Pierre-Francois Beauchard, and first published in France as a six-volume series from 1996-2003. More posts Posted by Emma Broom on June 21 st, 2012 in InspirationĮpileptic is an honest and moving graphic memoir about growing up as the younger sibling of Jean-Christophe, a child with epilepsy. Epileptic by David B – Hive Review Series
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