Lost Soul, Be at Peace by Maggie Thrash (review)

In this sequel to her graphic memoir Honor Girl (BCCB 11/15), Thrash picks up her story in junior year, where she's deeply depressed, flunking her classes, and feeling completely alienated from her Atlanta socialite mother and her oblivious, workaholic federal judge father. Her cat Tommi is her one reliable object of affection, but the pet somehow goes missing in their enormous mansion. During her searches for Tommi, Maggie encounters a series of mysteries and a possible ghost, who gives her often unwanted but much needed perspective on her misery ("Oh poor you. Your mansion is so big you lost your cat inside it. Boo-hoo") and ultimately helps her recognize what makes her father tick, bringing her greater understanding and sympathy. Figures are minimally drawn with casual, stylized directness, and they effectively convey traits that strongly influence Maggie's relationships: the newspaper that shields her father's face, the truncated run-on sentences that cram her mother's nattering speech bubbles, the delicate translucency of the "ghost" (revealed to be her father as a teenager), the evil Tommi that haunts her dreams. In a closing note Thrash comments on the facts at the core of her tale—privilege, loneliness, coming out, and yes, a lost cat—and how she reconciles memoir with ghost story. Readers who met Maggie in her Camp Bellflower summer will be happy to see her work her way toward acceptance. EB