graphic novels
Between the Hudson
and the East
Yick. Whoa! Yick.
KOCKROACH by Tyler Knox. WILLIAM MORROW,
2007. HARDCOVER, $23.95.
OK, let me be honest: I took a couple
of classes with Tyler Knox. I believe Knox
once drove me home from an Iowa
Writers’ Workshop holiday party (not that I
was in the workshop, just taking a class or
two). So perhaps I shouldn’t be reviewing
this clever new novel, another in what I’d
call the “MFA graduate moves to New
York and must dominate city by writing
about it” genre. Because Knox has literary
smarts, he dedicates this Metamorphosis-
upended novel “For G.S.” One can only
assume that’s Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, the
man-become-cockroach. In Kockroach,
however, the bug (species Blattella ger-
manicus) wakes up human and, after
doing some gross cockroachy eating
things, names himself Jerry Blatta.
Knox swiftly transforms the amusing
reversal into a commentary on corruption,
on the city, on human power — and on how
an amoral insect might just become the
most powerful person in the country. While
that may or may not be a barb aimed at var-
ious current politicians, the narrative itself
brings to life a certain New York, the city of
the 1950s, the Times Square (as one char-
acter describes it) “of pinball palaces and
shady dance clubs, of the grand old
Sheraton-Astor and the fleabag junkie
haunts that surrounded it, of the Broadway
theaters where I never set foot and the
Roxy Burlesque, with its second-rate strip-
pers playing to a third-rate crowd … High
heels and low brims, angry taunts and
pearl-handled switchblades, jazz fiends
looking for green, Benzedrine addicts look-
ing for God.” That description goes on for
many more words, the montage of images
showing Knox’s research but also a style
that brings Michael Chabon to mind far
more than Franz Kafka. The tale quickly
turns into a spooling out of Edward
Hopper’s characters in Nighthawks — the
people themselves becoming threads in
Knox’s rather conventional depiction of
gender relations and power dynamics.
Kockroach is a mob tale, really, and a por-
trait of the city with sly references to Jerry’s
past life mixed in (for instance, he survives
a huge conflagration — of course). It’s a
clever idea and, if someone who has ridden
in Knox’s car can say this, a generally fasci-
nating ride. — Suzi Steffen
22 DECEMBER 13, 2007
DMZ VOL. 1-3: ON THE GROUND,
BODY OF A JOURNALIST, PUBLIC
WORKS by Brian Wood and Riccardo
Burchielli. DC/VERTIGO, 2006 & 2007. PAPERBACK, $9.99 EACH.
New York City is a place that gets
inside your head. Live there even for a lit-
tle while, and you get attached to the
place, where everyone has their own ver-
sion of the same few blocks and there’s
always something new to see. Brian
Wood (whose Channel Zero you also
ought to read) and Riccardo Burchielli’s
DMZ, a spectacularly imagined series
collected into three paperbacks so far, is
a particular heartbreaker for a NYC-lover,
all burned-out buildings and nightmarish
blocks. In a bleak future, the U.S. has
split; militias have taken over most of the
country, calling themselves the Free
States. The United States of America still
holds New York City’s outer boroughs,
and in the middle is the DMZ: Manhattan.
It’s still a Manhattan of millions of stories
and hundreds of small worlds, but little
else is the same, as photographer Matty
Roth finds out when his new Liberty
News internship falls to pieces as soon
as he lands in Manhattan.
DMZ’s first volume,
On the Ground, con-
cerns Matty’s learning
to live in the DMZ,
meeting its residents
and hearing their sto-
ries, convincing Liberty
News to take him seri-
ously and coming to
feel as if he can’t leave
this strange, broken,
wonderful place; the
second, Body of a
Journalist, is chiefly
about Matty coming to
understand the part he
plays and the power he
can, potentially, wield
by using his connec-
tions inside and out-
side the DMZ. (Volume
two also includes two
separate, brief and
wonderful
pieces
about life on the
island.) The third vol-
ume, Public Works, is a single story about
Matty trying to get inside a Halliburton-
like reconstruction company called
Trustwell. It’s less immediately enthralling;
it lacks the freshness and exploratory
qualities of the first two collections, when
Matty is still learning his way around, and
its parallels to the war in Iraq seem almost
too overt. But DMZ’s depiction of life in a
war zone, of the way people fight to sur-
vive and to help or hinder each other, is
breathtaking. Wood’s sometimes eco-
nomical, snappy writing and Burchielli’s
inspired, fearless depictions of a brutal
existence are vivid and textured. There’s
something daring about making New
York, which feels like it belongs to every-
one, into no man’s land — except for
these few men and women who tirelessly
try to keep it ticking. — Molly Templeton