Loved and Lost: a Relationship Trilogy

Jeffrey Brown — 2022

A pioneer of 21st-century graphic memoir, Jeffrey Brown captures timeless insights into love, intimacy, and vulnerability in three unforgettable relationship portraits. Twenty years ago, young painter Jeffrey Brown grew frustrated with the expectations of the art world and wanted desperately to make something real. In a single sketchbook, working directly in ink, he began recording his memories of a recent long-distance relationship, matching the emotional frailty of the young lovers with painfully honest writing and art. As that book, Clumsy, struck a chord with readers and spawned the follow-ups Unlikely and Any Easy Intimacy, Brown's work proved a watershed for the emerging form of the graphic memoir. Chronicling the awkward mess of romantic relationships in unsparing and explicit detail, these works also reflect the fragmentary nature of memory, the risk of opening ourselves to pain, and the giggly rush of falling in love. Now collected into one volume for the first time, this Relationship Trilogy is a bittersweet reminder of the everyday joy, heartbreak, and humor that -- despite everything-- keep us coming back for more. Collects Clumsy, Unlikely, and AEIOU or Any Easy Intimacy.

Reviews

Shona Tiger@shonatiger

Jan 19, 2023

Thank you to NetGalley and to IDW Publishing for this eARC. I’m not a huge reader of graphic novels — probably because the digital form is always so difficult to consume, and I’m a digital first reader. I also didn’t know at all what to expect, going into this one — but what happened was that I stayed up late reading it, and finished it early the next morning. So, this is 3 love stories, apparently true: the ups and downs of relationships, sex, drugs, break-ups, young love, first love, and so on. The graphic style is really scrappy, especially at first, but I really grew to like its raw honesty. The content is sometimes funny, and often really, really sad: I started to feel really good about my own love stories. (You know how you think your own path is uniquely bad, until you hear about someone else’s). There’s also a whole lot of sex depicted in here, but it isn’t gratuitous. Just a reminder that this is about young adults, and is aimed at adults, presumably, if you’re monitoring what your kids read, etc. So, cw for explicit content. So, in all, an unexpectedly good read, really heartfelt. I hope Mr Brown found a good thing in the end. Rated: 8/10. Read if this is your genre, and if you like things like the NYT’s Modern Love podcast/blog.

Charlotte @readwithchar

Aug 17, 2022