asianamlitfans | A Review of Jen Lee’s Garbage Night (NoBrow Press, 2017).

A Review of Jen Lee’s Garbage Night (NoBrow Press, 2017).

By Stephen Hong Sohn

What a quirky, difficult to label graphic novel we have here in Jen Lee’s debut Garbage Night (NoBrow Press, 2017). Animals talk, but who knows exactly why? Could it be because we’re in a postapocalyptic wasteland in which no humans seem to be left alive? These animals are basically dumpster diving all day, because that’s where there seems to be what’s left of food to eat. We’ll let B&N give us some more contexts: “In a barren and ransacked backyard, a dog named Simon lives with his two best friends: a raccoon and a deer. The unlikely gang spends their days looting the desolate supermarket and waiting for the return of the hallowed ‘garbage night’ – but week after week, the bins remain empty. While scavenging one day, the trio meet Barnaby – another abandoned dog who tells them about the ‘other town’ where humans are still rumored to live. Spurred on by hunger and the promise of food, the trio joins up with Barnaby and set off into the unknown…With echoes of post-war, derelict places, Garbage Night explores how animals may internalize their changing environment and express their thoughts, fears and hopes.”

This description doesn’t give us any answers. You can’t help but wonder whether or not Simon and his two buddies are able to talk because of some nuclear disaster, which killed off all the humans and mutated the animals to give them the ability to talk. Whatever the case, the animals function with their own hierarchies. The more predatory the animal, the more likely that animal—at least, in this fictional world—is liable to turn on you, turn you into prey. Coyotes, for instance, in a later sequence definitely function in this capacity. Because animals can now talk and because they aren’t always looking for food in the same way, this kind of hierarchy begins to come off as a form of cannibalism reminiscent of something you might have read in a number of novels such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

There is much to praise in this work; I did appreciate the understated quality of the story. The questions leave ample room for a classroom discussion to take place were one to teach this work. And Lee fully provides her wayward trio with enough pathos to evoke sympathies even amongst the most heart-hardened of readers. There’s a moment in which the trio make a tentative new ally, one who seems most intent on fracturing the bonds of this group. Lee chooses to sequence these panels through the deer’s eyes; you get an immediate sense of the deer’s sense of melancholy in this land without garbage, without excess. The art always functions to help evoke this sense of lack; the colors generally move toward earth tones, with strong tinges reds and oranges that suggest that the environment has become overused. Let’s hope Garbage Night has a sequel, so we can see if Simon and his friends ever find the mecca of surfeit that seems to fuel their existence and their inveterate survival instincts.

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Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Leslie J. Fernandez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Leslie J. Fernandez, PhD Student in English, at lfern010@ucr.edu