Giant

Set during the construction of Rockefeller Center in the 1930s, this spectacularly drawn historical epic brings Depression-era New York City to riotous, romanticized life. At the center of the sprawling narrative is Giant, a hulking, closemouthed steelworker who joins a crew of fellow Irish immigrants, sky boys working hundreds of feet off the ground on the rising edifice. Giant harbors secrets carried over from the old country, and he begins an epistolary relationship with the widow of a sky boy (pretending to be her husband, as he can't bring himself to reveal to her that he's died). But the storytelling is more about the new world: the personal dramas of Giant's crewmates and tenement neighbors, as well as the city itself, the graphic novel's most shining character. Mikael draws bathhouses, brothels, Catholic churches, and Hoovervilles with enthusiasm and attention to period detail. The rich, classical illustration style, colored in sepia tones, respectfully recalls the art of old N.Y.C.'s great draftsman, Will Eisner. Set pieces, including a trip through Ellis Island and a visit to one of the early Macy's Thanksgiving Day parades, are rendered with panache. The translation by Madden brings the operatic story down to earth with colorful period dialogue. This melodrama lives up to its inspiring setting, a muscular young city in a nation of immigrants, brimming with stories to tell. --Publishers Weekly