Wardini Book review: Tsunami – Ned Wenlock (Earth’s End Publishing, $34.99)

Ned Wedlock’s graphic novel Tsunami is Raw, honest and aimed at a mature audience of older teens and adults.

OPINION

This is a graphic novel, aimed at a mature audience of older teens and adults. In it, Peter is soon to start high school and his radical honesty is getting him into trouble.

The story world is set up beautifully in the first few pages. Peter’s parents are arguing about something petty; clearly, the relationship is floundering. Next door’s young children are swearing up a storm on the trampoline and being yelled at by their Nan that they’ll get a whooping if they don’t stop f*****g swearing.

It’s funny and sad and the author does a great job of highlighting, in a short, sharp series of panels, what intergenerational trauma can look like.

The foreshadowing of something terrible continues: the elder child in the same neighbouring family, Gus, launches an unprovoked attack on Peter on the way to school; a teacher’s reaction to Peter’s artwork is reductive, his literal interpretation of her instructions setting Peter up as a smart, probably neurodiverse, kid bound to fail.

Later, the same teacher responds to Peter’s allegations of bullying by telling him, the victim, that ‘that sort of thing can get you into trouble.’ She means if he speaks up, and is honest, he could get hurt.

Enter Charlie, a new immigrant from the UK who isn’t yet invested in any social politics; she spots Peter’s predicament and befriends him.

She’s a breath of fresh air, standing up to the bullies and counselling Peter to be a ‘badass.’ There’s a between-the-lines discussion here around morality – Peter and Charlie, the good guys, instinctively laugh when a person in the street drops and smashes something.

The reader wonders, if you’re mostly a terrible or good and honest person, are you always a terrible or good and honest person? Is it really as black and white as Peter sees it?

A chase scene involving Peter and one of his bullies creates incredible tension in a speech-free series of panels, with the reader’s eye tracking the speed and movement of the characters through landscapes that suggest some distance is covered. It’s a breathtaking moment highlighting how graphic novels can achieve through images what a novel would in pages of prose.

Tsunami is a cautionary tale that reminded me, chillingly, of the song Jeremy by Pearl Jam: cyclical abuse and misconstruction of actions and intentions that lead to dark, sad consequences.

There is so much more going on than I’ve mentioned – it’s a psychological portrait of human behaviour condensed into an intense read. It was absolutely compelling.