Stone Fruit Hardcover – May 11, 2021 by Lee Lai (Author)
$24.99

Stone Fruit

Brand: Fantagraphics Books
Current Stock:
UPC: 9781683964261
Gift Wrapping: Gift Wrapping Available
Authors: by Lee Lai (Author)
Out of stock
  • Publisher : Fantagraphics (May 11, 2021)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 236 pages
  • ISBN-10 : 1683964268
  • ISBN-13 : 978-1683964261

An exhilarating and tender debut graphic novel that is an ode to the love and connection shared among three women and the child they all adore.

Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray’s niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy, and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seeded personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties ― Ray with her overworked, resentful single-mother sister and Bron with her religious teenage sister who doesn’t fully grasp the complexities of gender identity. Taking a leap of faith, each opens up and learns they have more in common with their siblings than they ever knew.
At turns joyful and heartbreaking, Stone Fruit reveals through intimately naturalistic dialog and blue-hued watercolor how painful it can be to truly become vulnerable to your loved ones ― and how fulfilling it is to be finally understood for who you are. Lee Lai is one of the most exciting new voices to break into the comics medium and she has created one of the truly sophisticated graphic novel debuts in recent memory.

Review

"Lee Lai's graphic novel debut is an elegantly illustrated and introspective marvel, a deeply moving story about the push and pull between family and selfhood. ... [A] book that will change the literary landscape in 2021."
― O The Oprah Magazine

"In Stone Fruit, relationships are characters unto their own ― tangled, evolving, alchemical. Lee Lai is a major new comics talent."
― Jillian Tamaki (This One Summer)

"Lee Lai perfectly composes the intricacies of intimacy, the families we stem from and those we grow into. I love her work, the way she pushes around gouache and captures dialogue to render moments so naturalistic, heartbreaking, and humane."
― Craig Thompson (Blankets, Habibi)

"Lai presents a tender and emotionally raw examination of three women struggling to form and maintain their identities within and outside of their immediate family, illustrated in a loosely expressive style that conveys both bombastic catharsis and silent anguish with aplomb."
― Library Journal (starred review)

"Athena-like, Lai bursts onto the graphic scene fully formed and utterly realized with this jaw dropping debut. Her stunning artistry and complex narrative skills prove inextricably stupendous in a story about all kinds of love―between lovers, of course, but also between complicated extended family....Raw, intricate, and impassioned, Lai’s resonating accomplishment proves astonishing."
― Booklist (starred review)

"A poignant and mature rumination on how people change, and change each other, proving Lai a talent well worth watching."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A beautiful and evocative reflection on queer identity, relationships, vulnerability and acceptance of self and others."
― Ms. Magazine

"A shockingly relatable and beautifully illustrated insight into the sticky complications of contemporary relationships between siblings, partners, elders, and youngsters."
― Bitch Media

"The way Lai illustrates emotional truths that can be hard to say with words is stunning. The sheer humanness of this story took my breath away."
― Book Riot

"The graphic novel’s soothing watercolor palette contributes to its tender and heartbreaking tone."
― CNMN Magazine

"In Lee Lai’s debut graphic novel, a queer couple navigates personal and familial struggles between joyful and imaginative playdates with their six-year-old niece, Nessie. Lai captures the complex emotional tenor of Bron and Ray’s relationship with Nessie, their respective sisters, and each other."
― The Paris Review

About the Author

Lee Lai was born in 1993 in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. Currently, Lai makes comics and illustrations in Tio'tia:ke (Montreal), Quebec. Her short story comics have been featured in The New Yorker, The Lifted Brow, Room Magazine, and Everyday Feminism.

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