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It's funny, politically astute, and heartbreaking. It's graphic novel poetry.-Sherman Alexie, author of The Toughest Indian in the World
Pantheon
March 2006
288 pages
ISBN: 0375423656
Hardcover
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Graphic Novel
From the Harvey and Lulu award--winning creator of Artbabe comes this riveting story of a young womanβs misadventures in Mexico City. Carla, an American estranged from her Mexican father, heads to Mexico City to "find herself." She crashes with a former fling, Harry, who has been drinking his way through the capital in the great tradition of his heroes, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Harry is good-humored about Carlaβs reappearance on his doorstep--until he realizes that Carla, who spends her days soaking in the city, exploring Frida Kahloβs house, and learning Spanish, has no intention of leaving.
When Harry and Carlaβs relationship of mutual tolerance reaches its inevitable end, she rejects his world of Anglo expats for her own set of friends: pretty-boy Oscar, who sells pot and dreams of being a DJ, and charismatic Memo, a left-wing, pseudo--intellectual ladiesβ man. Determined to experience the real Mexico, Carla turns a blind eye to her new friendsβ inconsistencies. But then she catches the eye of a drug don, el Gordo, and from that moment on her life gets a lot more complicated, and she is forced to confront the irreparable consequences of her willful innocence.
Jessica Abelβs evocative black--and--white drawings and creative mix of English and Spanish bring Mexico Cityβs past and present to life, unfurling Carlaβs dark history against the legacies of Burroughs and Kahlo. A story about the youthful desire to live an authentic life and the consequences of trusting easy answers, La Perdida--at once grounded in the particulars of life in Mexico and resonantly universal--is a story about finding oneself by getting lost.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - July 10, 2006
All Things Considered - June 9, 2006
Talk of the Nation - May 29, 2006
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