EDMUND WHITE’S A BOY’S OWN STORY: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL/ Based on the novel by EDMUND WHITE/ Adapted by BRIAN ALESSANDRO & MICHAEL CARROLL/ Illustrations by IGOR KARASH/ Published by TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

Originally published in 1982, A Boy’s Own Story was Edmund White’s attempt to write a tale of gay identity that was more than simple sensationalism in a time when most gay literature was defined by how many sex scenes could be snuck past the censors. Top Shelf Productions has brought this classic coming of age story to life in a new graphic novel adaptation.

I can’t speak to the quality of the adaptation, having not read the original novel, but I found this graphic novel to be an interesting biographical account of one man’s adolescence and how he reconciled who he was with what society and a distant father pushed him to be. The artwork is exquisite, with painted panels that look like what a comic by Claude Monet might have been had he been born four decades later and gone down a different artistic path. While the most likely audience is LGBTQ comic readers, this book deserves a larger audience of art aficionados and those who can appreciate a good story about feeling lost in yourself.