Men I Trust is a heat-seeking missile for queer longing
Written and illustrated by Tommi Parrish
Review by Rebecca Cushway
Content warnings: suicide, addiction, coercion
Tommi Parrish’s second graphic novel, Men I Trust, is a heat-seeking missile for queer longing, about the complex relationship between two similarly vulnerable feelings: need and loneliness. The story takes place over what couldn’t be more than a week in time, but the relationship between its two main characters spans a range of emotion that is usually only skimmed in traditional novels. It revolves around Eliza, a single mother and poet who feels like she can’t quite keep up, and a needling fan named Sasha who is riding the depressive aftershocks of a recent suicide attempt. The two meet, become close, and eventually combust under the weight of their fears in a strangely ordinary erotic hotel encounter.
The novel’s opening scene features an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where we hear the stories of strangers before we are introduced to Eliza for the first time. In the background of the characters’ monologues, a figure is mowing a bright green lawn out an open window, with a whole dialogue-free frame dedicated to his progress. This banality is one of Parrish’s more commonly used techniques in Men I Trust; frames are filled, mid-sentence, with a whole lot of beautifully watercoloured nothing. A pair of shoelaces, two coffee cups, and gravel on the road. These pauses are the graphic novel equivalent of a beat in scriptwriting – a way for the author to force their audience to pause, just for a second.
The thing that struck me most about this novel wasn’t the intense themes or the failings of the main characters, but the overwhelming normalcy of everything that happens. There are scenes in Men I Trust that a more scathing writer would have cut, scenes where Sasha or Eliza are having extended conversations with side characters, or are walking down the street getting yelled at by passing drivers. The way Parrish has carefully constructed the dialogue in these scenes, and rendered detailed full-page spreads of lounge room settings is painstakingly considered. There are phrases attributed to characters that sum up their entire characterisation in one sentence. “I like to pretend I’m someone who likes to be alone,” said in conversation jokingly, put out of context, is an admission of farce. An excellent distillation of Sasha’s misguided saviour complex for Eliza comes when Sasha asks Eliza not to “stand too close to the edge” when standing on a bridge.
Tommi Parrish uses this banality and painstaking detail to create a sense of awkwardness and discomfort more tangible than any I’ve seen in a cinema. The pause frames also come in the form of seemingly unfinished panels, pages, and frames in a yellow wash and hastily drawn outlines. It is these frames lacking dialogue that really add to the intimacy of Parrish’s writing. Whenever I have had a difficult conversation, I rarely look at the other person’s face. I have memories that are flooded with emotion, but all I can see in them is a close-up of a dusty car air vent or a painted-over nail on the frame of my kitchen window. I remember the exact amount of tiles on the bathroom floor that I was crying in, not the look on my mum’s face. Similarly, Sasha and her mother feature in a tiny car in the corner of a full-page spread of the city in the middle of one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the book. Men I Trust has achieved the difficult task of being a book full of difficult memories that every one of us has quietly felt, alone.
If we were to define the main characters as those who have introductory scenes with title cards featuring their name, Men I Trust actually has a third main character. Andrew, a man who seems like nothing more than an embodiment of toxic masculinity and a blip in the anecdote of the two women’s final conflict, is introduced without context in a scene that is at once both pathetic and empathetic. He is alone, drunk, and seemingly fallen from grace. Without any further context, you are compelled to feel sorry for him, despite being disgusted by his behaviour. The inclusion of this, before finding out that he is heartless, and more generally gross, would be out of place if not for Parrish’s otherwise precise storytelling. We are encouraged to see the flaws and vulnerabilities in all of these characters, so why not this man? The incidentally queer and weirdly intense relationship between the two women in this story, and themes of identity and intimacy, make this an undoubtedly queer novel. Historically this is not an audience that would morally align with an elitist, middle-aged, mildly homophobic D-list home improvement celebrity, but Parrish encourages us to empathise with Andrew anyway, despite the discomfort we might feel doing it.
The only real fat to be cut in this novel is the extended sequences of scene-setting that continue beyond the first chapter. The beautiful atmosphere created in each scene introducing our characters does so much to provide context and mood that the reader is already on board by the time they get to the next scene. Parrish still leads into each scene slowly, with silent stillness. It makes for beautiful illustrations and a nuanced exploration of character, but I can’t help but want more in a medium that needs to be so economical with space. Parrish chose to do away with narration, which does so well to encourage reflection in the reader, but the loss of internality in their characters means that it takes longer for us to get close to them and this extra space could have been taken to give us a bit more action.
Tommi Parrish’s second graphic novel asks a personal question of its reader and sits comfortably in the awkward silence that follows. Who are you? Why? Is it enough? This novel is for readers to ponder; how much do you value your own desires at the expense of another person’s comfort?
Men I Trust is published by Scribe. Purchase it at your local bookstore or on the website here.
Rebecca Cushway is a radio host blessed with the most luxurious radio voice in the Inner West and burdened with the ability to do everything everywhere all at once. She’s not nearly as smart as the undergrads she tutors at UTS think she is.
This review has been generously donated by Bec.
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