The Sacrifice of Darkness

October 30, 2020

GR 8 UP-Emotionally broken miner Hiram Hightower escapes the darkness underground to touch the sun, sending the world, and family, he left behind into darkness. In this Black-centered fantasy, Hiram's son, Joshua, becomes the town pariah, mocked and scorned by all, the blood red crease left behind by the sun reminding the world of what it has lost. Scientists work tirelessly for a solution that would return the sun to the sky while the local governing Corona Council realizes that the rapacious mining of a fictional substance called flareon has come as a detriment to humanity. Joshua is befriended by Claire, a young woman whose kind heart cuts through the incessant public shaming that Joshua endures. With each passing year, mounting hatred against the Hightowers forces the Corona Council to demand a blood payment for his father's actions. When Joshua refuses, he sets off with Claire, now his wife, to search for an answer in the sky. Love, culpability, and family bonds converge in this graphic adaptation of Gay's short story "We are the Sacrifice of Darkness." The comic's pacing uniquely reads like a graphic short story, moving fluidly between Hiram's early life and that of Joshua's life after his father's death. Kirby swathes Hiram's pages in the colors of a sunset, visually connoting the impending end of his life, while Joshua's reminds the reader of a sunrise. Bold orange hues combine with warm colors foreshadow hope in a new day. VERDICT The quest for love, identity, and the power of family carries Gay's adaptation. Perfect for readers who enjoyed Kevin Panetta's Bloom or Tillie Walden's Are You Listening?.-Elise Martinez, Racine, WI

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2021
Adapted from a short story by Gay, this multigenerational, fable-like tale unfolds over interwoven stories, beginning with devoted miner Hiram Hightower's audacious one-way journey into the sky, which destroys the sun, leaving the world in darkness. In the future, the mining town where Hiram grew up now shuns his wife and young son, Joshua, blaming them for Hiram's actions and demanding a blood sacrifice if science can't bring back the sun. As the years pass and darkness remains, Joshua and his mother fend off the council's threats of violence, while the narrative loops back to reveal the reasons behind Hiram's actions. It would tempting to try to find an allegory here, as the plot touches on themes of ancestry, climate crisis, exploitative labor practices, and prejudice, but Gay and Oliver's story compellingly defies such easy categorization. Kirby and Fenner's impressionistic artwork makes excellent use of color, setting sunset tones against inky black silhouettes, cultivating a nighttime look perfectly in keeping with the plot. Thought-provoking speculative fiction that movingly explores the human condition.

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August 24, 2020
Based on a short story by Gay (Hunger), this graphic adaptation, co-scripted with Oliver and illustrated with Kirby’s gorgeously hued art, spins an Afrofuturistic fable and a flexible allegory that echoes multiple oppression narratives. Joshua Hightower is the son of Hiram Hightower, a third-generation Flareon miner, whose double shifts underground left him so desperate for light that he flew an airship into the sun, extinguishing it for years. As a result, Joshua and his mother are shunned by society, except for the open-minded young Claire. Joshua and Claire’s schoolyard friendship and eventual love story unfolds alongside flashbacks to Hiram’s courting of Mara, a girl from a wealthy, disapproving family. The town’s governing body tries in vain to restore sunlight, growing increasingly thirsty for Hightower sacrifice. Joshua and Claire, meanwhile, hope for a dual miracle: a baby and a return to light. With help from a few discoveries of their own using “precious” Flareon dust, they begin to build a more equitable world. Kirby’s sublime drawings of clapboard buildings and wide streets give the town a Wild West feel. And though the narrative achieves a mythical vibe, the parable quality occasionally slips into vagueness. Even so, the glowing hope within this tale will be welcome to readers in dark times.

November 1, 2020

This tender coming-of-age tale begins as Hiram Hightower, a miner from a long line of miners in a city dependent upon a rare mineral called Flareon, pilots his air machine into the sun, seemingly extinguishing it completely. As the darkness lingers for days, weeks, and eventually years, the people Hiram left behind must cope with their new reality--perhaps none more so than his wife, Mara, and their son Joshua, who becomes a pariah known as "Son of the Sun Stealer." Joshua's friendship with a girl named Claire is his only source of comfort and joy, and eventually blossoms into a romance. As they seek to build a family of their own, the town's ruling elite becomes increasingly desperate; when it's suggested that a blood sacrifice from a member of the Hightower family might rekindle the sun, Joshua and Claire find themselves needing to discover an alternate solution. VERDICT Based on Gay's (The Banks) short story "We Are the Sacrifice of Darkness," and adapted into the graphic form by Gay and writer Oliver, this deeply romantic sf/fairy tale hybrid exploring class issues, identity, and survivor's guilt is brought to life through Kirby's (Now: The New Anthology of Comics) graceful illustrations.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.