Writer, Playwright, mother, nurse, dame, adventurer, archaeologist and stager of disappearances. The life of Agatha Christie (still one of the worlds most read writers) is one that has unlikely twist and turns, much like her novels. We know more about her writing then we did about her life. From her younger self that was full of fears and dreams, stifled by the death of a beloved father to her middle age and the runaway. Then through to the great dame period where she met royals and became the face of murder and mystery. She lived through both world wars, harrowing personal loss, a very public divorce, exploring the ancient sites of the world and depression from the place she found herself but kept writing 2 book a year.
Graphic biography novels are an amazing thing. Opening up lives of names both well and moderately known. Using elaborate or challenging visual images. Using written dialogue that is intelligent and revealing. The folks over at Self made hero press have given them due respect and exposed deeply rewarding works. Agatha is a fresher view on a well known name. The name that we know for her creations as much as her own richly complex life. It details much of her major events, her story of dissatisfaction at her first marriage, voyages of discovery and love of mystery. It also simply and gracefully blends clever use of said creations with their creator in the way that the creative mind blends reality and fantasy into a whole. Condensing a life into just over 100 pages can be costly to story and person however.
I want to highlight the wonderful art work in the piece by Franc. He has allowed the piece to not be too heavy or to incomprehensible to the casual reader. Brilliantly blending the dream state that Christie would have been in, as an artist and as a dreamer. My only issue was that it rapidly runs through events as not to explore them in enough detail. Not a major pain in truth as I then referred to its extensive timeline in the bibliography but what it did for me is reduce the impact. So in reflection, you like, love or have an interest in Agatha Christie read it.
