The Park Bench

by Chaboute

'An incredibly lovely book. Beautiful, kind, witty and calm.' Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing With Feathers

Chabouté's enchanting story of a park bench was first published to critical acclaim in France in 2012. Faber now brings his work to the English-speaking world for the first time.

Through Chabouté's elegant graphic style, we watch people pass, stop, meet, return, wait and play out the strange and funny choreography of life. Fans of The Fox and the Star, The Man Who Planted Trees and Richard Linklater's Boyhood will find this intimate graphic novel about a simple park bench - and the people who walk by or linger - poignant, life-affirming and brilliantly original.

• ISBN10: 0571332307
• ISBN13: 9780571332304
• Publish Date: 6 July 2017 (first published 4 July 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Faber & Faber
• Edition: Main
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Completely without written dialogue, this book is a narrative around the fixed point of a park bench in a public park over time. The art is simple and well drawn and manages to convey a sense of atmosphere and pace with the seasons changing and the same recurring characters as time passes around the same park bench.

Much of the human experience is represented here.. life, rebirth, death, sadness, love, constancy, hate, sadness all contrasted with the hurrying obliviousness of living a life of unvarying routine and failing to simply notice what's happening around us.

I was familiar with this artist/creator from his other works, but was surprised how moving this book was for me. It really could easily have been extremely pretentious or overly precious, but it was touching and profound. Deftly, beautifully written.

It's a relatively long book (336 pages), but I read it in one sitting and with a later re-read, noticed things I had missed on a first reading. I suspect it's one I will revisit many times.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.