Chartwell Manor

Chartwell Manor by Glenn Head
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chartwell Manor is the story of Glenn Head's time at Chartwell Manor and the scars he continues to carry from it to this day.

I don't remember how this originally ended up on my radar but I'm glad I picked it up. It's a powerful, unsettling, memorable book.

Cartoonist Glenn Head was having trouble in school when his parents sent him to a boarding school in 1971, where he and the other boys suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the headmaster and that's just the first third of the book. From there, Glenn struggles to fit in, deals with alcohol and sex addiction, and generally tries to make it as a cartoonist against all odds. While he's a sympathetic character to some degree,

The art has an underground feel to it, the stark black inks making everything pop. It reminds me of Dan Clowes at times but I'm sure it's because they have some of the same influences. The writing really lays it all out there and doesn't look away. It took an unbelievable amount of courage to tell a true story like this.

I don't feel like I'm conveying the magnitude of this. Ordinarily when I'm reading a comic or trade paperback or whatever, I'm rushing off to tweet panels from it and it takes about twice as long to get through as it needs. I read this pretty much in one sitting, feeling uneasy but completely unwilling and unable to put it down other than to fire off a tweet urging people to pick it up.

Chartwell Manor is an unflinching tale of abuse and survival. Five out of five stars.

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