The Next Day

Written by Paul Peterson and Jason Gilmore
Art by John Porcellino

I found this short graphic novel project to be much more interesting than I originally anticipated.  The Next Day has its text taken from interviews with four people who have attempted suicide.  Each person, three women and one man, tell their stories in one-page increments, and as the book jumps from one person to the other, many parallels between their stories are observed.

The book has incredibly simple drawings.  They almost look like they could have been done by children, and where usually this type of minimalist art is a negative for me, I found that it helped focus on the tension in each person's story.

In each case, the person is thankful that their suicide attempts failed, and we see a little of how they are currently living their lives.  This is an important work in that it helps shed some light on depression and mental illness, and can be used to create more understanding of these problems.  Apparently there is more to this project than just this book - there is also an interactive website being run by the National Film Board of Canada.

I'm not sure if this is something I would give to a person suffering depression to help them understand their condition, but I think it may help families and friends come to grips with what a loved one is going through.