Freaks of the Heartland
I really enjoyed this graphic novel. We begin with a father who likes his drink, a mother who tries to stick up for her children and son who is silent outside but has lots of emotions inside. The illustrations showcase the gloom and the emotions that hang over the household. You don’t really need to read the words to know how each individual feels as they tread inside the house. The boy must go tend to his brother and at these words, I am wondering if they named one of the livestock “brother.” I am hoping that my guess is correct but as I turn the page and see a large child shackled in a barn, my hatred towards the father grows. It is the conversation that these two brothers have that tells me that love still resides outside in this barn. It is later at night when the boy unshackles his brother, unbeknownst to anyone, so that they can romp and walk through the fields together that I have hope for these two boys.
The next morning, father is planning to matters into his own hands as he takes his rifle down from the wall. When mother says, “Maybe if we didn’t treat them like animals they wouldn’t act like animals.” I am startled as she said “them” so there is more than one individual being treated like the boy in the barn. What occurs out in the barn made me wonder who the freak was in the novel and how many more freaks I would read about before this novel was over.
This is one of those novels where you wonder how things will play themselves out. Why is the boy’s brother being held in the barn and who else was in hiding? What would happen in the final pages of this book? It was hard not to look.
