Black Hole: Come, let us stroll arm in arm toward the event horizon

Oh hey, guys . . . do you wanna read a graphic novel that's an extended metaphor for "the nature of high school alienation itself—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape"?

Yeah, I didn't either. But then I saw the part about how the high school students in this '70s suburban Seattle neighborhood are passing around an STD that manifests in different physical mutations (lizard tails that fall off and grow back later! tiny neck-mouths that wheeze in the night!). I can't resist a good wheezing neck-mouth.

In the appropriately titled Black Hole, we see the story from the perspectives of a few different characters, infected and noninfected and soon-to-be infected alike. In a lot of ways, it’s a typical slice of high school life. You have the popular kids and the rejects, same as always. The virus is just a way of making the politics of popularity more visible than usual. And it doesn’t matter if you were the prettiest, nicest girl in school before you got the plague; once everyone finds out that you slept with the neck-mouth guy and now your skin peels off in one big piece, you might rather drop out of school and live in the woods than face the inevitable social castigation.

But, just like high school, the cruelty doesn't necessarily stop even if you remove yourself from polite society and refuse to participate in teenage politics . . . because you can be judged less worthy and persecuted (and possibly beaten with a large stick) by your fellow freaks, too.

Hurray, high school!

So you might be wondering if I actually liked this graphic novel, and I certainly wish I could tell you. I can say that I didn't enjoy it. But that means nothing because I don't think it's meant to be enjoyed, per se. Even though the illustrations are in simple black and white, they still manage to be pretty cringe-inducing. And everything feels like the '70s, which is to say . . . kind of dirty? And then you have the generally unpleasant subject matter.

But the message is universal, and any time a story can connect with the shared experience of a whole age group, across generations, that's invaluable. I'm still trying to decide whether this would be a good book to put in the hands of kids who are currently in high school, or whether it's safer to consume it with the benefit of hindsight and stabilized hormone levels.

If any of you high schoolers out there do decide to pick this up, I would counsel you to remember that the book's reality is likely bleaker than your own, even if it doesn't always feel that way. For instance, do you have a tail that prevents you from wearing skirts? *waits while you double-check* I didn't think so. Also remember this:

Eventually, most awkward teenagers...

grow up.