these conversations are simply a fan fawning over their idol’s amazing life among the creative elite, but Helen’s descriptions of minute, detailed memories start to become eerily similar to the narrator’s own life. The parallels increase as the narrator notes intimate details of her personal history appearing in Helen’s old diaries, and she begins to suspect something more nefarious is occurring. Lisa Tuttle’s novella manages to pack in a mystical My Death by Lisa Tuttle (2004) “What the dream had shown me was the familiar become strange, how frightening the ordinary can be.” An American widow living in rural Scotland is making small attempts to return her life to normalcy after the unexpected death of her husband. A professional writer, she had not written since his death. When her agent emails to let her know he will be in Edinburgh for work and would like to have lunch, she takes the opportunity, driven by the need to start making some money to avoid having to take up other work to make ends meet. Arriving a little early to the meeting, she visits the National Galley and sees a painting: Circe by W.E. Logan. This chance viewing sparks the subject for her new book. Departing from fiction, she decides she must write a biography of one of her favorite authors, Helen Ralston, the muse and mistress of W.E. Logan, who had a lesser-known creative career in his shadow. Fortunes favor the narrator again when her suggested biography subject compels her agent to introduce her to his friend who has a mysterious painting in his collection that they can visit that afternoon. Hanging in his home is Helen Ralston’s My Death, a painting of a Scottish island with a figure hidden in the image. This figure was of a “woman, naked, on her back, her knees up and legs splayed open,” and at the center, “what drew the eye and commanded the attention, was the woman’s vulva: all the life of the painting was concentrated there.” After seeing this intimate piece, the narrator becomes set on the task of honoring this forgotten writer and artist and on returning My Death to its creator. She arranges to meet Helen Ralston, now very old, and interview her for the biography. At first No. 150 story about art, women and life into just over 100 pages. She questions our understanding of female creators and how we tie their stories and work to the men who surround them, so often relating them to their relationships rather than their individual work. Surprising and bubbling with mystery, My Death is a vital work in Tuttle’s impressive catalog. Why Art? by Eleanor Davis (2018) Before examining the title question of her 2018 graphic novel, Why Art?, Eleanor Davis leads readers through what an artwork is. Deceptively simple and almost like a children’s book, she expands on this concept explaining that artwork can have color, be differently sized, but it can also be categorized by how it makes us feel and what it evokes. “There are some artworks that are meant to remind the audience of things we’d rather forget, things so awful they shouldn’t be true.” All these explanations are paired with simple, almost always black and white drawings that seem to motivate the imagination to think of artworks that fit into each of her descriptive categories. In the second half of her graphic novel, Davis details a story of members of an artist collective, each with a unique skill. They plan a show that gets destroyed through an inexplicable, devastating weather event. One of the artists finds a tiny shadowbox during the chaos showing a joyful, utopian community. They plead to be saved by the shadowbox people, and move to live among them, going on to create tiny versions of themselves who create new, tiny artworks. A beautifully simple meditation on a gigantic concept, Why Art? is a sweet comment on the need to create and the irreplaceable importance of art in all its forms. By Hana Zittel
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