Can't Wait Wednesday #11

This week I found out that graphic novelist Nick Drnaso's newest novel Acting Class will be published on August 16, 2022. I am anxiously awaiting its publication. Drnaso is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I studied and within a year of graduating he had huge success with the publication of his graphic novel Beverly. He followed up in 2018 with Sabrina. 

Acting Class follows ten strangers who meet at a free acting class in a community center. The teacher, John Smith, is a mysterious and morally questionable figure. This group of social misfits and restless searchers have one thing in common: they are out of step with their surroundings and desperate for change.  The group includes a husband and wife, four years into their marriage and simmering in boredom, a single mother, her young son showing disturbing signs of mental instability, a peculiar woman with few if any friends and only her menial job keeping her grounded, a figure model, comfortable in his body and ready for a creative challenge, a worried grandmother and her adult granddaughter, a hulking laborer and gym nut, a physical therapist and an ex-con. The class sinks deeper into their lessons as the process demands increasing devotion. When the line between real life and imagination begins to blur, the group’s deepest fears and desires are laid bare. 

The wide variety of characters alone gives the author many interesting ways to approach the plot. I look forward to finding out where he takes the story.