A review by crookedtreehouse
The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long, Jim Demonakos
4.0
History has taught me not to believe in happy endings or memoirs. Both are involved in [a:Mark Long|286614|Mark Long|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], [a:Jim Demonakos|4836266|Jim Demonakos|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], and [a:Nate Powell|51924|Nate Powell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360540007p2/51924.jpg]'s graphic novel about late 1960s American racism.
I didn't do any research about the story or the authors (I was only familiar with Powell's work) before reading it, and was surprised by how much of the first portion of the story focused on how a white family was affected by violence against black students and protesters. But that shifts as the story goes on, and becomes an uncomfortable but not difficult look at every character in the book.
And they are characters. Like many modern memoirs, this story has been highly fictionalized "for storytelling purposes" to find "a balance between factual accuracy and emotional authenticity." Which the author addresses in the afterword.
There is an unsatisfying pacing in the narrative, as it doesn't give a proper sense of time passing. The ending (not the trite, paint-by-numbers epilogue, but the actual ending to the main story) seems implausible given the history of the American Justice System, race relations in the 20th and 21st centuries, and the events that lead up to it. It bothered me enough that I did some research on the events the story is based on. If the story had been less compelling, I might not have spared the effort but I needed to know that the ending (and, again, I don't mean the epilogue) was historically true. The answer is: sort of. The end result is true but there are years that take place between page 158 and 159, but the story and the lack of characters aging makes it seem like only weeks or months.
Powell's art is excellent, as always. And while Long and Demonakos's pacing had me questioning the historical accuracy of their narrative, I never doubted their emotional authenticity.
I didn't do any research about the story or the authors (I was only familiar with Powell's work) before reading it, and was surprised by how much of the first portion of the story focused on how a white family was affected by violence against black students and protesters. But that shifts as the story goes on, and becomes an uncomfortable but not difficult look at every character in the book.
And they are characters. Like many modern memoirs, this story has been highly fictionalized "for storytelling purposes" to find "a balance between factual accuracy and emotional authenticity." Which the author addresses in the afterword.
There is an unsatisfying pacing in the narrative, as it doesn't give a proper sense of time passing. The ending (not the trite, paint-by-numbers epilogue, but the actual ending to the main story) seems implausible given the history of the American Justice System, race relations in the 20th and 21st centuries, and the events that lead up to it. It bothered me enough that I did some research on the events the story is based on. If the story had been less compelling, I might not have spared the effort but I needed to know that the ending (and, again, I don't mean the epilogue) was historically true. The answer is: sort of. The end result is true but there are years that take place between page 158 and 159, but the story and the lack of characters aging makes it seem like only weeks or months.
Powell's art is excellent, as always. And while Long and Demonakos's pacing had me questioning the historical accuracy of their narrative, I never doubted their emotional authenticity.