The anger at taking the world on by myself.

As someone who comes from a family with a completely mentally absent father, I felt the echoes of some of these wounds.

It was not until a terrible event that their family was rent into pieces and both kids went their separate ways. You aren’t sure what you’re in for until Beth arrives on the scene and a whole new dimension of this “roughneck” opens up and we are immediately tied to this broken remnant of family.ĭerek and Beth’s father was the raging drunk and abused their mother, both physically and psychologically. He lashes out constantly and is generally an asshole to everyone. But, as Beth’s ex hunts them and draws closer to their small slice of home, he may destroy everything that Derek and Beth have begun to build between one another.ĭerek is haunted and deeply wounded, carrying the burden of generations of toxic masculinity and abuse. As the years fall away, they begin to address the many scars they carry and start the healing process of t heir family’s trauma and their Cree heritage. When his little sister, Beth, shows up in town, running from her controlling and abusive boyfriend, the two siblings begin to reconnect. He drinks, brawls, and is in a free-fall spiral of self-destruction. I read his Descender series recently and loved the themes and here it seems Lemire dives deeply into new, deeply intimate themes of abuse, forgiveness, healing of heritage, among others.Īfter Derek Ouellette’s hockey career ends prematurely after a brutal incident, Derek has been scrapping by in the small community of Pimitamon, in the far north. Lemire’s writing is sparse, but beautiful, leaving room for his two-tone illustrations that are occasionally spotting with bright red blood. I am back on a graphic novel kick and decided to give ROUGHNECK from Jeff Lemire a try and it was by far one of the best things I have read in recent months.

Roughneck lemire