I'm doing my best to explore graphic novels outside of the publishers I'm familiar with. BACKGROUND:
I've never heard about this book at all. I just saw it was free on the digital store and added it to my library. SUMMARY: This story is set in New Orleans, right as Hurricane Katrina is about to hit. We see that the prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison aren't being evacuated under the pretense that the facility will weather the storm. In St. Bernard Parish, however, the local juvenile detention center does not share the same confidence, and has their delinquents transferred to the prison for their protection. We follow the perspective of two characters at the start. Russell Gates is a longtime inmate of the Orleans Parish Prison who's found contentment in incarceration, though he is close to being let out. On the juvie side, a young man named Sydquan has to remain in detention no thanks to the courts closing before the hurricane hit. It seems like he's in for a crime he didn't commit, though some of the delinquents in with him want revenge for it. Things get interesting early on, when the delinquents are transferred to the prison. As it turns out, Russell and Syd are father and son, although the relationship is far from smooth given Russell appeared to be absent as a dad. The two seemed content to stay out of each other's way until Russell notices that some of Syd's fellow delinquents are looking to kill Syd. Russell spends most of the book trying to keep Syd safe, though his efforts are often thwarted by the guards (some of whom are racist assholes). As the storm raged on outside, it became painfully clear that the prison wasn't equipped to handle a hurricane as powerful as Katrina. Throughout the book, the flood trickled into the prison, and eventually, the destruction becomes too much to deal with as pipes burst and the water rose to chest level. The guards try to do damage control at first, moving both the prisoners and delinquents to and fro, but it's evident that they don't really give a shit, abandoning ship when the storm gets worse. Once the hurricane starts wrecking the place, order breaks down as everyone scrambles to survive. Despite the rift in their relationship, Russell tries to keep Syd safe in the chaos, as the people trying to kill Syd are attempting to take advantage of the guards abandoning their post. Eventually, Syd resolves to break out of prison to see if his family is safe (it's important to note that he has an infant son, shown at the beginning), and Russell eventually goes to help him despite the risk to his own prison sentence. Throughout this last stretch of the story, Syd and Russell reconnect. Russell acknowledges his absenteeism head-on and tries to make amends by putting himself at risk for his son's sake. Along the way, Russell learns of Syd's family situation, and even figures out the truth behind why Syd was even in juvie. Syd is understandably not interested in meeting his father halfway at first, but he comes around when he sees Russell's selflessness, which leads to a heartwarming ending. I was pretty aware of the scope of Hurricane Katrina's destruction even at the time, but I've never really thought about how bad the prisoners must have had it given they had to be stuck there. The chaos and destruction throughout New Orleans as a whole was shown in full in this comic, and it really hammers home how devastating the hurricane was. Russell and Syd's story is equally engaging, as they both have compelling motivations. Russell knows he's screwed up and does everything he can to try and make up for something he knows he can't really make up for, while Syd is willing to risk life and limb to ensure that his own family is safe (a contrast to his own upbringing). It's really nice to see them eventually make peace with one another by the end after they come to understand each other during their whole ordeal. The art is pretty simple, opting for muted colors, subtle shading, and mostly thin linework. There's also not a lot of intricate detail, but everything looks decent, nonetheless. VERDICT: When the River Rises had both a compelling father and son story and showcased a perspective on the Hurricane Katrina disaster I never considered at the time. Both these elements made the book an engaging read, and I enjoyed seeing Russell and Syd reconnect over time as I took in the sobering truth of what the prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison likely had to deal with in 2005. I think this is a book worth reading largely because it shows something most people don't think about or have ill-informed perspectives on: that the incarcerated are people, too. I'm not one to cast aspersions on people I don't know, but I don't feel like it's unreasonable to say that most prisoners don't deserve to go through what the inmates shown in this graphic novel had to endure. Now, I don't know how much of this book is based on real-life events, but I nevertheless believe that there's merit in considering the points of view of the main characters in this book and trying to empathize with their situation. - end -
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
Derryck
|