The first half of this book was so moving & powerful with its illustrations of people lost to Covid. Around halfway through the drawings begin to be dominated by reflections on the political bad actors of the trump universe & other examples of social injustice in the US. While I am sympathetic to these themes & to the larger issues of the interconnections between various forms of injustice, I had picked up this book for its focus on Covid & memorializing some of those who have died. 400+ people are still dying every day, but no one talks about that & even this book that started out with a focus on the enormity of this loss couldn’t maintain that focus.

Reading 2023
Book 8: Living Dying in America: A Daily Chronicle 2020-2022: A Daily Chronicle 2020-2022 by Steve Brodner

Another graphic novel that I found looking for nonfiction selections. This is a whopper of a book and part of my library haul before it closed for a few months.

Synopsis: Taken as a whole, Living Dying in America is a chronicle of those who died and those who honorably served the living — as well as an indictment of those institutions and political figures who betrayed the public trust. It is a searing and essential moral document, written and drawn on a daily basis with feverish intensity by one of the great forces of American cartooning.

Review: I really enjoyed the parts of this book that chronicled the lives of those lost during the pandemic. The art was amazing and each a unique portrait of those lives. What got a bit redundant and heavy handed was the political side of the book. At 400 pages, I only wanted to read a bit of the political parts. I think it is too close in time to when I had read and heard it all ad nauseum. Maybe in a few years I would be able to enjoy the whole book more. My rating for the art, and touching tributes to those lost 4⭐️.

This is the most depressing book I've read in ages. Each page is dedicated to a single person, with a description and a caricature. Most of it is devoted to people who died of Coronavirus, but there are a lot of innocent people who got shot by cops mixed in there too. The ones that aren't devoted to the dead are absolute bastards, frequently Republicans arguing against masking or defending the January 6th insurrection. It's just a lot to take in. It's 476 pages, but I finished it in two sittings.