Will Eisner
The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (2006)
Author: Will Eisner
Genre: Graphic Novel (Historical Fiction)
Plot Summary:
This trilogy contains three of Eisner previously published graphic novels: The Contract with God, A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue. The first novel, Contract with God, is itself a collection of four short stories, all set during the Great Depression at No.55 Dropsie Avenue in New York. The first story, “The Contract with God,” is about a Rabbi whose contract with God is broken when his adopted daughter dies. The second, “The Street Singer,” is about a street singer who comes to the attention of a has-been opera diva who promises him fame and fortune. The third, “The Super,” is about a disgusting super who loses his beloved pet to a conniving little girl. The last story, “Cookalein,” recounts the experience of several New York City Jews who spend their summer vacationing in the Catskill Mountains. The second novel in the trilogy, A Life Force, chronicles the life of a Jewish carpenter during the year 1934. This novel begins with the carpenter depressed and considering how life is is just like that of cockroach since both are merely trying to survive. Over that course of a year his life changes, going from prosperity to ruin and along the way he encounters others whose lives are following the same rollercoaster rise and fall. Dropsie Avenue follows the “social trajectory” of the neighborhood and the people who have lived on the property that becomes Dropsie Avenue. The story begins in 1870, when the areas was a small farm owned by the Dutch Van Dropsie family, and follows the all the areas history until the recent past, when Dropsie Avenue has become a collection of cheap, single family homes. SPOILER: In order of above description, the rabbi becomes a slum lord, the singer can’t remember where the diva lives, the super kills himself, the teenage loses his virginity, the carpenter ends up as unhappy as when he first considered the cockroach, and the people in the new single family homes still struggle to survive like all the others who have inhabited any place on Dropsie Avenue.
Geographical Setting: The Bronx, New York City
Time Period: 1930’s
Series: Contract with God series
Appeal Characteristics:
Framed against backdrop of immigrant life in the Bronx, Eisner’s literary style of writing a graphic novel makes it easy to understand why his work is so respected and highly awarded. These novels share a dark tone which is illuminated with moments of hope. For all the darkness, Eisner’s message seems to be that good people still try to save the world and that sometime struggling to survive can be enough. One way this darker tone is transmitted is through the black and white artwork, intermixed with artistically maneuvered text outside of the speech and thought balloons. With deliberate pacing, Eisner deftly presents compelling characters, fleshing out their personality with artwork and text.
Read-alikes: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a nonfiction graphic novel by Eisner, tells the story of the fabrication of “The Protocols of Zion”, a document created by the Russian Czar’s secret police in 1905. This document that is a purported plan for world domination by Jewish leaders was confirmed as a total forgery in 1921, yet it continues to be published and disseminated throughout the world, stirring up anti-Semitic belief. While this novel differs for the Contract with God series by being a nonfiction novel, it shares Eisner’s imaginative use of text and images to discuss serious subjects. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is a by far the most important work published as a graphic novel. Like Eisner’s series, it is story about Jews. It is the retelling of Spiegleman’s father’s life in a concentration camp during World War II. In this tale, the Jews are mice and the Nazis are Cats. Treating his father as neither a hero nor a saint, Spiegleman records the sacrifices his father was forced to make in order to survive. This novel is must reading for fans of graphic novels. Set in Germany in 1929, Berlin: City of Stones is a graphic novel by Jason Lutes that recounts the final days of the Weimar Republic. The story follows the lives of an ensemble cast of assorted Berliners as they come to terms with the rising fascism that is stirring in the capital. As in Eisner’s novels, the characters are richly portrayed as the author explores the sacrifices and compromises that are necessary to survive in troubled times. Paul Auster’s City of Glass, by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, is a different type of look at life in New York City and a people struggling to survive. Karasik and Mazzucchelli’s comic adaptation of Auster’s novel follows the bazaar story of Daniel Quinn, a once serious poet and essayist, decides to take on the persona of detective Paul Auster after answering a series of wrong number phone calls at his home. Taking on the case of protecting a disable young man, Quinn slowly fall into madness and find himself in need of protection. The multiple plot twist and character transformation make this novel more than just a detective mystery well worth reading Road to Perdition, by Max Allen Collins, takes place in Depression-era Chicago, where a well known hit man, Michael O’Sullivan’s son witnesses a murder and becomes the target of Looneys employers. As the story of a father and son setting out to avenge the death of their family unfolds, this graphic novel addresses the struggle of people grappling with their religious belief even as they break the laws of their faith.
Red Flags: Nudity and sex scenes
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