In a rural midcentury Pennsylvania farmhouse, a young woman named Marian is going into labor. Her mother is by her side, her father goes outside to find Marian's husband, Ray, who is outside, bitterly smoking a cigarette. Marian's mother tells Ray he's about to become a father. Ray snaps, "Can't I just finish my fucking cigarette?"

2/

In just a few pages of economical storytelling, illustrated with simple ink-washes, Mendes sets in motion a story of cyclic abuse, unconditional love, redemption, and tragedy. "Economical" is a strange word to apply to Mendes's book, which is a fat 574 pages long.

3/

(The book is a beautiful artifact, on thick paper that drinks the ink-wash illustrations and renders them in lush, mysterious gradients; the cover stock, embossing, and other features are all gorgeous, thoughtful and understated - this is a joy to hold.)

But the storytelling *is* economical, light on dialog, with panels that flow smoothly from one to the next, conveying a dynamic gestalt at the page level, and nuance in each panel.

4/

This economy of storytelling - including some brilliantly handled jumps in the action that leap several years at the turn of a page - makes the book fly by, such that I read it all (really it feels like I *drank* it all) in one sitting. You can read the first 17 pages at Drawn and Quarterly's website:

drawnandquarterly.com/books/th…

5/

Marian and Ray end up on a military base where Marian works at the PX. Edie, the baby that was born in that opening scene, grows up in the shadow of vicious, relentless physical abuse, as Ray beats and torments Marian. Naturally, Edie spends a lot of time with her friends - and away from home - and we see how the rage within her ruptures under stress, sometimes hurting her, sometimes the children around her, and sometimes both.

6/

But these scenes also paint a picture of tender, wild camaraderie, the uncomplicated and pure friendship of children, thoughtlessly intense. We see how Edie is both rooted in this place, and also anchored there, unable to imagine life away from these kids.

So when Marian finally leaves Ray, fearing for her life and Edie's, we feel Edie's pain at leaving - and then her heartbreak as her mother leaps off the train they are escaping on to intercept Ray and keep Edie safe.

7/

Edie makes her way to the grandparents who haven't seen her since the day of her birth, and the second act begins.

This act is a long, beautiful coming of age story, as Edie heals, nurtured in the bosom of her loving, good grandparents; the bucolic life on the farm; the friends she surrounds herself with. Mendes gives us generous - but never drawn out - peeks into Edie's life as she matures from a child, to a teen, to a young woman.

A young woman in love.

8/

The third act begins with Edie at 17, pregant by the boy next door, deciding to marry him and move out of state with him to a place where a relative can give them jobs and a trailer to live in and start their family.

And before long, the cycle of abuse has begun again.

9/

*The Weight* is a ferocious read, the sweetness of the highs there to provide texture for the bitterness of the lows. Like a strip of white paper bisecting a sheet of black, the juxtaposition of the idyllic second act with the brutality of the beginning and end makes all three acts impossibly vivid.

It's a story you won't soon forget.

eof/