Denise Dorrance’s graphic memoir, Polar Vortex, is enchanting, every page lovely to look at, so funny and plangent and full of sly wisdom. But it’s also (dread word) strikingly relevant. Its principal subject being old age, by rights it should bring vast crowds of new readers to comics. There can, after all, be few people now who haven’t at least some experience of caring for – or just worrying about – an older relative, as the author does in her book; even those who aren’t yet there know full well what lies ahead: the care bills that will have to be paid, the attics that must be cleared out. After I finished reading it, I thought of my own boxes of photographs, my heaving bookshelves. To whom am I leaving the burden of sorting them out? I pushed the thought away, but it cannot be avoided for ever.
Dorrance has lived in London since 1995, but she was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in Polar Vortex, her first full-length graphic book, she returns to it, somewhat reluctantly. Her elderly, widowed mother is in hospital after a fall; decisions need to be made. On paper, this sounds a bit grinding. Please, no commodes! But Dorrance has a delicate touch, and a feeling for the rich territory on which she finds herself.
