Review by Frank Plowright

David Good’s name is probably one you’ve not previously come across unless you’ve a particular interest in anthropology, but Good proves a fascinating story is a fascinating story whether or not you’re familiar with the subject. However, while much is interesting, the fascination is tempered by information not provided.

Good’s father was an anthropologist who so enjoyed the way of life among the Yanomami people of the Amazon that he remained with them for twelve years from the mid-1970s. He married a Yanomami woman, and before David’s birth they moved back to the USA. Good picks up with David in his early teens and is recollections of his journey to his mid-twenties. The numerous internal conflicts any teenager endures accumulate alongside the additional burden of his unusual mixed heritage and missing mother. A succession of pernicious incidents have remained with him, some unaccountably down to his father’s lack of understanding, and they’ll engage the sympathy of any reader.

Artist FluX, whose alias of John Malloy is revealed in the introductions, is an illustrator by trade, which shows up more in the colour inserts than the black and white continuity, although that also features illustrative quirks, such as people with double outlines. The art is expressive and even ordinary scenes are thoughtfully composed as David’s American life is contrasted with the fewer pressures on the Yanomami people in the bright colour sequences. These are more simply drawn and wordless, depicting day to day life among them as experienced by David’s father. Late on there’s a merging, which is a clever piece of symbolism concerning reconciliation.

As captivating as David’s story is overall, this is a frustrating telling of it, as questions never answered will constantly occur to the reader. David references resenting his mixed heritage, but without any great explanation why. There’s an incident of racially provoked bullying, but it’s not contextualised. Was it isolated or a regular occurrence? Why did the family constantly move during David’s childhood? A further frustration is this being almost exclusively David’s story when it’s crying out for wider input. Having only known life in Amazonian jungle the culture shock for his mother moving to the USA must have been almost beyond comprehension, yet it’s not even mentioned, never mind addressed.

His mother, or the lack of her, is the key element to David’s personality, a matter never adequately diagnosed during childhood by his distant father, expanding into troubles starting in his mid-teens. Startlingly, it’s only toward the end that she’s actually named. David’s fall and rise struggle is explained, with any acknowledgement that it could have so easily ended differently unsaid.

In keeping with the feeling throughout, the ending is frustratingly curt. A brief consideration of David’s later years would have made for a preferable epilogue rather than his biography filling in the details, and the resolution is only really a beginning. Again, a few pages of updating would have made Good better.

All in all, though, whatever’s missing, the story is interesting enough as it stands, and thoughtful art fills in for some narrative shortcomings.