Stone Fruit is an amazingly assured debut graphic novel from Lee Lai.  Employing a modulating mode of representation that shifts from realistic to figurative as inner states of mind are externalized, Lai relates the unwinding of a fraught relationship.  If that sounds interesting and you'd like to learn more, then we recommend reading Laura Sackton's insightful review of Stone Fruit at the Chicago Review of Books, HERE. 

Since 2019, The Museum of Modern Art has commissioned cartoonists and illustrators to craft stories about their experiences inside and outside the museum. Editors Alex Halberstadt and Arlette Hernandez have gathered together here, in the 184 pages of this horizontally formatted, 6" x 12", full color hardcover, twenty-five of those comics, all taking place in the comp;any of – and inspired by – modern art, primarily that shown in and/or part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City (NYC).  These comics have been created by a stellar array of cartoonists, including Jon Allen, Gabrielle Bell, Barbara Brandon-Croft, Jessica Campbell, Roz Chast, Ted Closson, Liana Finck, Ali Fitzgerald, November Garcia, Anna Haifisch, Mari Kanstad Johnsen, Patrick Keck, Lee Lai, Ellen Lindner, John Vasquez Mejias, Danica Novgorodoff, Tommi Parrish, Ben Passmore, Weng Pixin, Anna Sarvira, Walter Scott, Bishakh Som, Karl Stevens, Chris Ware (whose contribution is a stand-alone, pull-out / fold-out poster; of course), and Erin Williams.  

The horizontaliity of the format* makes for a reading experience akin to that of reading mammoth sized daily newspaper strips of spectacularly diverse approaches, intents and manifested styles.  We will admit to having had some trepidation that the work would veer towards the precious and/or self-consciously arty – but no!  Our concerns were misplaced.  The work presented here largely adheres to the cartoonist ethos and stays true to the comics making / reading  experience.  So, readers whose personal Venn diagrams show a strong overlap between museum going and comics reading have a very good chance of connecting with much of the work that this collection contains.  If that sounds like you, then we  can say, "Recommended!"

If you have a moment, head over to The Beat and read this interview with the editors, who provide background and insight into th process of putting this booik together and getting it out.

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*Two of the contributing artists – Ben Passmore and John Vasquez Mejias – decided to "flip the script" (read, format), and chose to go vertical instead, necessitating a ninety degree rotation of the book and making for yet another take on the (very) Old School daily strips that also sometimes ran vertically in the paper, as dictated by space requirements. 

Lee Lai's much anticipated follow up to Stone Fruit has at last arrived!  This 300 page hardcover will begin shipping from Copacetic on Tuesday, September 16.

Here's what publisher D&Q has to say:

"A LAMBDA Award winner and breakout fiction sensation returns with a darkly funny slice of friendship strife

We arrive to wreckage—a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heat-wave, this is where we meet our protagonist, Cannon, dripping in little beads of regret sweat. She was supposed to be closing the restaurant for the night, but instead, well, she destroyed it. The mess feels a bit like a horror-scape—not unlike the horror films Cannon and her best friend, Trish, watch together. Cooking dinner and digging into deep cuts of Australian horror films on their scheduled weekly hangs has become the glue in their rote relationship. In high school, they were each other’s lifeline—two queer second-generation Chinese nerds trapped in the suburbs. Now, on the uncool side of their twenties, the essentialness of one another feels harder to pin down.

Yet, when our stoic and unbendingly well-behaved Cannon finds herself—very uncharacteristically—surrounded by smashed plates, it is Trish who shows up to pull her the hell outta there.

In Cannon, Lee Lai’s much anticipated follow-up to the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Stone Fruit, the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a slice of what Lai has on offer. As Cannon’s shoulders bend under the weight of an aging Gung-gung and an avoidant mother, Lai’s sharp sense of humor and sensitive eye produce a story that will hit readers with a smash."

AND, they've also posted a a very generous preview of it online, so go check it out now, HERE.