Harare Review of Books

448 pages.

First published on Sept 13, 2022.

Genre; Graphic Novel/Non-fiction.

Looks like this is my banner year for reading graphic novels. Ducks has received a lot of buzz on the usual book sites, and I got curious. Many weeks later, I’m still thinking about it.

Kate Beaton, a New York Times bestselling cartoonist, is orginially from Cape Breton, Canada. After university, she decided to leave the area, because there were few jobs, and she needed to pay off her student loans. She moved to Fort McMurray, Alberta—the lucrative oil sands—where she was one of very few women in the camps there. She was young, and slightly naive; the camps were brutal, lonely, and dangerous for someone like her. This is that story.

Beaton’s Bildungsroman is movingly told. The difficult scenes don’t need a content warning, but could not be more impactful. The artwork is also wonderful: spare, simple, and mostly monochromatic.

This is wonderful, and sad, and nuanced, and hopeful. I’m so glad I picked it up.