Baby Bjornstrand

Baby Bjornstrand by Renée French
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Want to make your goth girlfriend swoon? Give her this for her birthday. Equal parts dark, ethereal, surreal, cute, optimistic, and existential - the most important descriptor for this work is "evocative," used in it's most banal definition of "that which evokes". There are very few words in Baby Bjornstrand, and the words that do appear are only signposts to a road of hidden dialogue and churning thoughts that are invisible to the reader, but absolutely there; not in the same way as Matthew Forsythe's (outstanding) Ojingogo, as French's work lacks the same innocence of Forsythe's tale, but in a somewhat sinister, yet undeniably adorable manner. The art is simple, but has a graininess that lends it character, giving the book a noir-ish feel, again implying hidden movement in the shadows and spaces between, but with a playful tinge, almost like French is making light (pun intended) of her own darkness.

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