Comics & Graphic Novels Literary
Rebecca and Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor
- Publisher
- Drawn & Quarterly
- Initial publish date
- Jun 2021
- Category
- Literary
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770464643
- Publish Date
- Jun 2021
- List Price
- $24.95
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 14 to 18
- Grade: 9 to 12
Description
A maternity leave murder mystery, complete with postpartum physiotherapy and suspicious grocery store footage
Rebecca’s got an eight-month-old baby and a mystery to investigate! Late one summer night as she’s breastfeeding Lucie, she spots two men carrying something heavy into a white minivan. It’s probably nothing serious, but when Rebecca hears that a home health care provider named Eduardo Morales disappeared from the neighbourhood that very night, she puts her detective hat on and gets to work.
Over the course of the subsequent weeks, Rebecca juggles motherhood and detective work—alternating between unproductive visits with the Simard family, for whom the missing Eduardo worked, and tearful visits to potential daycares for Lucie. She faces down inconclusive interviews with evasive subjects and inconveniently timed diaper changes. Pascal Girard’s observational humor and perfect timing shine through each page, highlighting how Rebecca’s (over)confident, brash approach gets results, not just with the troublesome Simards but with everyone in her life.
Rebecca and Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor is a lighthearted maternity leave mystery that centers a new mother in all her postpartum glory.
About the authors
Most of Pascal Girard's bios state that he's been drawing "since forever". That's a lie. No one has been drawing "since forever". That's impossible and illogical. Pascal Girard isn't able to remember the exact moment when he started drawing. But he knows everything has to start somewhere, and he is most certain that before that single instant where he started drawing he obviously did not draw. That's always how it goes. He is pretty sure, however, that his first book was published in 2006 and that ever since then he has written a few more : Bigfoot, Reunion andPetty Theft, just to name a few. When he isn't working on a specific project, Pascal keeps on drawing. Dessins offers us a peek into his day-to-day work. It's his first book for Pow Pow Press.
ALESHIA JENSEN is a French-to-English literary translator and former bookseller living in Tio'tia:ke/Montréal. Her translations include Explosions by Mathieu Poulin, a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation; Prague by Maude Veilleux, co-translated with Aimee Wall; as well as numerous graphic novels, including work by Julie Delporte, Catherine Ocelot, Mirion Malle, and Pascal Girard.
Helge Dascher has for 25 years translated texts with a dynamic relationship to images. A background in art history and literature has grounded her translation of over sixty graphic novels, many by artists who have broadened the medium's storytelling range. Her translations included acclaimed titles such as Julie Delporte's This Woman's Work (co-translated with Aleshia Jensen, Drawn and Quarterly, 2019), Sophie Bédard's Lonely Boys (co-translated with Robin Lang, Pow Pow Press, 2020) and Michel Rabagliati's "Paul" books (Drawn and Quarterly, Conundrum). She also translates exhibitions, digital stories, and films, most recently Theodor Ushev's The Physics of Sorrow (with Karen Houle, NFB, 2019). A Montrealer, she works from French and German to English.
Editorial Reviews
I found myself charmed... Pascal Girard’s little book works because it carefully treads the wobbly line between children’s and adult fiction. If it’s a bit silly – woman on maternity leave decides to solve murder case – it also has smart things to say about the conflicts involved in new motherhood, when fierce love and deathly boredom can often be found wrestling each other to the ground.
Rachel Cooke, The Guardian
Even as [Rebecca's] amateur detective work starts to spiral out of control, it also helps her build confidence, maybe even fierceness. The combination is comical with a bittersweet touch, and Girard’s quavery line quality and pleasantly schlubby figures give his watercolor artwork warm charm.
Booklist
The foray succeeds as both a mystery and a chronicle of day-to-day parenthood. Readers won’t be disappointed if this evolves into a series of offbeat mother-daughter mysteries.
Publishers Weekly
Pascal Girard is a name you can expect to hear more of in future. I loved two of the Quebec comic creator’s previous books, Petty Theft and Nicolas, and I am happy to see his talents grow with his latest release.
London Free Press
Girard saturates his borderless six-panels-to-a-page with riotously vibrant color—as if his admiration for Rebecca's clever energy can't be fully contained... This is undoubtedly one family affair worth thoroughly enjoying.
Shelf Awareness
Progress on the case takes regular breaks for familiar parental occasions, pool parties, doctor visits and even bus rides where the child decides to help herself to the headphones worn by another passenger. It’s the kind of micro-trauma that parents experience every day. Crime-solving seems so simple when it’s placed up against parenthood.
Newcity
Graphic novels featuring mothers as the main protagonists are few, and Pascal Girard’s latest graphic novel in translation is a great one. Rebecca and Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor is a poignant, uplifting, at times hilarious, and feminist Montreal mystery.
Montreal Review of Books
A breezy romp... featuring attractive, accessible cartooning.
Brian Nicholson, The Comics Journal
A light-hearted look at post-partum life.
CBC Books
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