Shadow Life

 

Shadow Life was published in March 2020 by First Second.  It is a graphic novel written by Hiromi Goto and illustrated by Ann Xu and is about Kumiko, a 76 year old woman.  Kumiko's middle aged adult daughters place her in an assisted living home against her wishes. However, she agrees to give it a try.  Kumiko does not like living there, runs away and finds herself a cozy bachelorette pad.  She keeps her location a secret from her daughters, even while they are talking on the phone.  Kumiko loves decorating as she pleases, eating whatever she wants and swimming in the community pool. Something has followed her though from the assisted living place - death's shadow.  

I enjoyed this story.  It is pretty cool that a bisexual senior Japanese Canadian lady is the protagonist in a comic and it shows what many seniors go through with their adult children.  For some reason they always want to lock seniors up in a facility.  Kumiko screams to the universe that she is not ready to die.  The story has a supernatural element in that Kumiko sees and fights what she believes is death's shadow.  The shadow is seen in the illustrations as spiders that are trying to consume her.  The theme of autonomy is a real world problem for seniors.  This theme is explored in Kumiko's fight for control of her life decisions from her daughters. I found the daughters quite bossy but realistic in their attempts to take over their mother's life decisions.

The black and white illustrations match the gloominess of the story and the drawings of Kumiko's body, particularly the naked ones, were spot on.  She has rolls of fat allover and they have drooped with the aging process.  Her leaking bladder is also realistic for older women.  It interesting that this fiftysomething writer knows so much about being a senior and can write from a senior's point of view.  Hiromi Goto has done a great job with this comic.

5 out of 5 stars!