Fish+Chocolate is a graphic novel by Kate Brown which is published by Self Made Hero comics.It is a collection of three graphic stories which explore the anxiety, fear and grief that are part and parcel of motherhood , weither we accept it or not.The first tale, The Piper Man , is fable and modern retelling of the Pied Pipper.A working single mother attempts to control her family and life in the aftermath of a messy divorce until a mysterious neighbour comes into her family’s life,establishes a bond with her children before taking from her everything she holds dear.The second tale called The Cherry Tree is one about a mother and daughter moving to a new country home.The mother ,a musician , hopes to find space to work there. She struggles with the materiality of her daughter when she squishes a bug and later injures herself with a violin. Her mother attempts to ignore her daughter’s physicality and needs til it drives her to possible suicide.This is a tale of the need to accept children as not just an extension of yourself as a parent ,but flesh and blood. The need to accept the darker aspects of parenthood and the need to never ignore the situation a child finds themselves enduring.The final tale is a deeply dark tale of loss.Martyoshka is about a mother who loses their child either through miscarriage,stillbirth or something else. The protagonist feels dry in every aspect of herself…She feels as if none of herself is left.In an extremely horrific part of the tale she gives birth to countless maggots drench in blood which signify the reality of losing a child so brutually…How death can tough life so deeply.In another part she imagines herself under water while in the bath almost in a womb.She holds her imagined child until it turns into her.Her larger self tries to drown her and kill her and it takes all her might to escape the watery tomb which she sees herself as having been.She sits by her bath after with a hole where her womb should be…where her child once was.The tale ends with the woman finding some simbilance of peace and acceptance by throwing away her dead child’s toys.Through doing this she makes peace with the past and distuishes the negative effect they have on her.She seems to find a small bit of hope..That she will survive and be whole again.Kate Brown is a fantastic writer and artist with an intensely unique style.Each story though bound by the same theme have things to say on their own as well.Fish +Chocolate is a fantastic book and well worth reading.
