Book of the Week

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso

Recommended by Mr Kemp

I have been really impressed with this. But I’m not convinced that it’s the masterpiece that some people have been suggesting. This is the first graphic novel to be long-listed for the Booker Prize, and so it has perhaps predictably garnered quite a lot attention from the broadsheets. Indeed, my copy took about a month to arrive because the publishers hadn’t anticipated such a wide interest.

                Sabrina concerns an IT security technician in a Middle American Air Force base. The technician’s friend comes to stay with him as his girlfriend has gone missing. Around a third of the way through the book, we discover that the girlfriend has been murdered by an Eliott Rodger- style figure and that the murder has been recorded and sent to various news organisations. The rest of the plot deals with the fallout of this on the main characters’ lives. Plot-wise, it is highly original. It is, as far as I know, one of the first books to deal with the bizarre internet culture of fake news, conspiracy theories, online harassment and the potentially devastating cruelty of internet trolling. In this, Drnaso’s book is highly contemporary, and genuinely helps reframe and reshape one’s experience of the internet. It isn’t preachy, it isn’t moralising, but it feels real and accurate. In this manner I can’t recommend this book more highly.

 However, I have one or two more formal objections to Sabrina. On one level this feels a bit slight. It seems more of a short story than a fully-fledged novel or novella. Drnaso has already written a short story collection, 2015’s Beverley, and this has much more in line with the singularity of purpose in that work, than say something more layered and novelistic. That’s a small complaint, of course,  as a good long short story is much better than a long bad novel.

My main problem with Sabrina is the tone of despairing bleakness. Admittedly, the subject matter is intensely serious, but I would like more empathy here. I was not connected with the characters, I did not see a single moment of joy or happiness in any of their lives. Granted many people live unhappy lives, but these characters are all are presented as tranquilised anhedoniacs. Why is there now this trend for comics where no one ever laughs? Or smiles? Or has a nice day out at the seaside? But I do hope it wins the Booker. It’s really interesting.