Neil Fein's Blog

The Contract With God Trilogy
by Will Eisner

This trilogy of seminal graphic novels is well overdue for the hardcover omnibus treatment. Printed in sepia ink on creamy paper, the volume is large, but not unwieldy.

My high regard for the the first book, A Contract With God, hasn't changed. These tales of jewish life in New York during the great depression is powerful, simple, and important. Here's my conclusion from that earlier review:

While all these themes are hinted at, A Contract With God is never polemic, and never places message above story. And the characters...! The super taking advantage of his tenants, the musician conning a rich lady, the Jewish teen looking for a rich "catch". These are the themes of Mr. Eisner's work.

One new observation I have is that the larger margins all around the pages in this edition are jarring at first, but it doesn't take long to get used to them.

A Life Force is in a similar vein, but somewhat more fractured in terms of story. While very good, it tries a little too hard to be an "important" work, as if trying to live up to its predecessor.

The themes of the Jewish American immigrant are still there, and the stories have moved forward in time. A carpenter is finishing five years' work, and letters arrive from home. Bureaucracy and organized crime are present in force.

Dropsie Avenue returns to the tone of the first book, the collective vein of the neighborhood itself. The history of the area is told well and entertainingly. Mr. Eisner is once more in his element, smoothly covering stories of local politics, racial hatred between minorities, and the Vietnam War that could so easily have been narrative quagmires.

Overall, The Contract With God Trilogy is an excellent book, a classic of graphic literature. It's well worth getting even if you already own the first book.

Tags: books