I first exchanged glances with Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis in the history section of my local bookstore—the last place I expected to fall in love with a novel, and a graphic novel at that. It stared out at me from among a gaggle of what looked like real snoozers—Being Modern in Iran, Iran Encountering Globalization, Persian Postcards. Black and red and strange, it looked like a punk rocker at a cello recital; it transfixed me, and I took it home along with its sequel. I soon got lost in their stark illustrations and intimate accounts of a childhood in Tehran and Paris. I had never thought much about Iran; I had certainly never wondered what a girl growing up there in the 1970s would have seen or thought or felt; but Satrapi’s two-volume illustrated autobiography lured me—and many others like me—into her profoundly foreign world. Satrapi followed Persepolis and Persepolis 2 with another autobiographical graphic novel, Embroideries, and now brings us Chicken with Plums. It resembles her former work in style and story, yet departs in significant ways. She still illustrates in a harsh, monochrome line suggestive of woodcut—achieving great subtlety and expression. Her latest story carries the reader on another intriguing journey into Iranian culture and history. Yet this work lacks the depth and warmth of Persepolis and evokes less sympathy. Darkness haunts its beauty.

Satrapi—along with Will Eisner, Chris Ware and Craig Thompson—ranks among the masters of an exciting, relatively new medium: the graphic novel. Graphic novels communicate powerfully to a world that grows more fast-paced and visually-oriented each day. The graphic adaptation of The 9/11 Commission Report outsells the text-only version. Last year’s American Born Chinese won a place on major “Best of the Year” book lists. Teens and young adults have embraced graphic adaptations of the Bible from venerable publisher Hodder and Stoughton. Satrapi works on the frontier of an increasingly vital form.

Biography rather than memoir, Chick with Plums follows Satrapi’s great uncle Nasser Ali Khan, a noted Iranian musician of the 1950s. Nasser Ali seeks a replacement for his favorite instrument, a Persian tar his wife destroyed. He tries many tars, but none satisfy, and he grows despondent. He spends his last eight days in bed starving himself and reflecting on where it all went wrong. His collapse undermines the lives of his friends and children until all of them swirl in helpless descent— his son enters a vacuous life in America, and his most beloved daughter willfully smokes herself to death. Yet Satrapi still infuses a sense of playfulness and humor, as when Sophia Loren makes an appearance in Nasser Ali’s dreams, or when an amiable specter visits his deathbed.

At its heart, Chicken with Plums examines the vacuum that remains when love dies. Satrapi asks deep, dark questions—What makes life worth living? Does pleasure bring meaning? What makes a love true or false?—but misses the answers. In fact, like so many artists of the last century, she disdains answers, reveling instead in the clean blackness of existential misery. Hopelessness is, apparently, an acquired taste. For Christians who savor hope, this book lacks the redemptive light we crave.

Those looking for a pick-me-up should avoid Chicken with Plums. Still, it has value. Non-fiction graphic novels come around rarely, and this one shows the craft at its most skillful. It expresses many of the yearnings of the postmodern heart, yearnings we should strive to understand and answer. And as an Iranian tale, it puts a face on a country that often hides behind a veil of secrecy and hostility. It reminds us that even the most repressive regimes govern mere people—people with souls and longings and stories. As peacemakers, we must remember that.

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