Not often does the story behind the book overshadows the book itself. Particularly when the book in question is actually good. But with this production, you really couldn’t have it any other way.
Conceived and created in Terezin concentration camp by two creators who didn’t leave to see it ever produced, this was meant to be an opera. It is a story as tragic as it is cautionary and eerily, terrifyingly prescient/timely, all these decades later. A bloodthirsty, warmongering authoritarian dictator so out of touch with reality that he pisses off Death himself who decides to take a vacation or go on strike, but either way not do its job so that the world is at war and full of people who will not die. Simultaneously gruesomely realistic and surreal and drawn gorgeously in black-and-white, this story is as disturbing as it is unputdownable. The most effective, affecting thing about this book and the story behind it is the undeniably hopeful note. That such beauty could be born out of a darkness so deep, that it could be found in the bleakest of circumstances is a true testament to the resiliency of the spirit. An absolute must read, this is the sort of book someone might try to ban someday. And I mean it as the highest compliment. Recommended.
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