March 1, 2025
British cartoonist and illustrator Kennedy presents a collection of 10 short stories influenced by his Black Caribbean ethnicity. Spanning various twentieth-century decades and locales, the stories introduce a West Indies immigrant trying to sell apples for his father, a Caribbean shape-shifting ligahoo, a woman with yellow fever being infected by the spores of psychedelic mushrooms, a boy growing into a man in Birmingham, England, who can't seem to escape his past, and a person at loose ends observing the injustices around them. Kennedy's artwork has a dark ink-on-paper feel similar to that found in many periodical cartoons, but the limited use of color throughout the stories, whether as a pop in a single element or a wash over the entire frame, adds to the context of the theme: green and red for the story titled "Green Men," where the protagonist is selling apples, and yellow for "Yellow Bird Blues," where the protagonist is suffering from yellow fever. This collection will appeal most to readers who enjoy thought-provoking social commentary.
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