Mikaël
Harlem, 1931. In the heart of the Great Depression, invention is the mother of necessity to make ends meet.
Stéphanie St. Clair, known as ‘Queenie’, had already understood this when she landed in New York almost twenty years before. Inventiveness when you are a woman and you are black is much more than a necessity. It's a question of survival.
In a few years, this young immigrant West Indian servant freed herself from the weight of ancestral servitude. Even better, she created her own American dream: the underground Harlem numbers game.
Hers is an ascent that makes people cringe, both with the local authorities and the white mafia. Dutch Schultz, aka. the Dutchman, an unscrupulous mafioso, intends to take control of the kingdom of the "Frenchy." But that's without taking into account the determination and impetuosity of Queenie, whose heavy past continues to guide her steps...
After the critically acclaimed Giant and Bootblack, Mikaël takes us to the Harlem of the prohibition for the final chapter of his New York triptych in sumptuous chiaroscuro, to meet a woman as strong as she is enigmatic.
* WINNER OF THE MoCCA 2024 AWARD OF EXCELLENCE! *
REVIEWS:
"Everything about this stylish drama is potently mythic and tragically foredoomed in a sincerely Shakespearean manner as it completes the auteur’s epic and ambitious New York Trilogy."
- Win Wiacek, Now Read This!
"Harlem is a work of quiet confidence from an artist who has clearly come into his own."
- Lindsay Pereira, Broken Frontier
"Mikaël’s artwork throughout this novel does an excellent job of portraying hopping jazz club or the cold winter streets of New York."
- Eric Smith, San Francisco Book Review
"...extraordinary and highly recommended…"
- James A. Cox, Wisconsin Bookwatch
"...Harlem is the real deal, a monumental drama."
- Ian Keogh, The Slings and Arrows
"A powerful graphic novel about ruthless and powerful people."
- Patti Martinson, Sequential Tart
9x12, 128 pp., full color hardcover, $27.99
ISBN 9781681123288
Buy the ebook, $16.99
ISBN 9781681123295