Cannon

This subtle yet searing graphic novel from Eisner and Lambda award winner Lai (Stone Fruit) takes its title from the nickname ironically bestowed on the main character, Lucy, by her best friend, Trish. In fact, Lucy is anything but a “loose cannon”; quiet, cagey, and hyper-responsible, she divides her time in Montreal over a summer heat wave between restaurant work and caring for her ailing grandfather. Trish, a sharp-tongued struggling writer, takes for granted their long friendship, which stretches back to when they were coming up in small-town Quebec as “the only two gay Chinese Anglophone teens in all of Lennoxville.” Lai cannily employs overlapped or cropped speech bubbles to show how stifled Cannon feels. Charlotte, a new server at her restaurant, becomes someone Cannon can open up to, and a romance blossoms. Cannon and Trish’s friendship reaches a breaking point when Cannon discovers that Trish is borrowing Cannon’s own family story to jump-start her new manuscript—about a mother who cedes the care of her abusive father to her overworked daughter. After Cannon finally explodes, a healing process begins with Trish (“Nothing you want is obvious, Cannon”), her mother, and herself. Lai expertly develops fulsome characters in fluid, emotive black-and-white art. Cannon envisions hovering blackbirds when she’s overwhelmed by emotions, and splashes of red flood the simply drawn backgrounds during heightened scenes. Lai’s embrace of their characters’ vulnerability makes for a satisfying emotional feast. Agent: Alessandra Sternfeld, Am-Book. (Sept.)