THIS REVIEW OF WE ARE ON OUR OWN IS SPOILER-FREE.
by Kate Kowalski. All we really are at the end of the day is our collection of experiences. Why we like certain colors and smells, why we brush our teeth in that certain way, how we tie our shoes, style our hair, eat, walk, speak — everything comes from a story. It can be a long, winding thread to unravel the story behind a dream, an idea, or a belief. Miriam Katin hands us her story — neatly, concisely — in We Are On Our Own, a book detailing the history of how she lost her faith.
We Are On Our Own is a Holocaust story. One told through words remembered and retold by others — postcards, letters, stories from her mother and father. The bulk of the story is set towards the end of World War II when a very young Katin and her mother escaped occupied Budapest and moved through relentless dangers in the countryside — first from the Nazis, then no real relief from the Soviets. It’s an incredible story of resilience and survival through utter dehumanization.
Most of the story is filtered through the narrative of Katin’s mother, as Katin was too young to remember the details of what occurred. I can almost hear her mother’s speech, her patterns, and her wording. It comes so clearly through the speech bubbles of her character, Esther, and the dialogue of others as well. But throughout the Esther-filtered narrative, little sparks of childlike perspective shine through: an emphasis on the farm dog, the importance of chocolates and poppyseed strudel, and how it feels to be spinning and spinning, breathless and dizzy without a care while the adults speak in harsh whispers.
There are flash-forward moments to the future, used sparingly but effectively in the book to underscore why we are here: to understand Katin’s atheism. We see her decisions as a mother echoing or rejecting those made by her mother before her. We follow the trail from this traumatic childhood to cautious adulthood. These flash-forwards can diffuse the tension but also reiterate that this isn’t a story of suspense; it’s an expression of loss.
These future-set scenes are sketched in vibrant colored pencil. The rest of the book — Katin and her mother’s escape and hardship — are rendered in simple graphite pencil. The lines are consistent and scraggly, like static moving across the screen. The black, dark moments feel especially heavy; the hand knows the required pressure to darken the page like that. The pencil strokes are flurried, scratching out the page in moments of rage and depravity, violence flying out of the panels. They can settle into light wisps during the short moments of peace. Most poignant is the ephemeral feeling of the pencil. Over the years, a story has been told, retold, erased, and drawn again. There’s a sense of impermanence and an unfinished effect. The story is alive, still working and threading into more and more stories over the years, culminating in different conclusions.
There are many Holocaust stories out there. Not nearly as many as there should be. Every surviving story is a light to be held high amongst the extinguished millions. But compared to these, what strikes me about We Are On Our Own is its motivation. Katin is candid about her beliefs. She survived atrocities and carried a family legacy of survival on her back throughout her life. She doesn’t believe in God, an internal struggle that has external consequences in her social and family life as a Jewish woman. How incredible is it to witness this resolution, this attempt to answer for that lack through art, a grander, encompassing force larger than us all.
We Are On Our Own is available now. For purchasing information, click this.
Drawn & Quarterly / $22.95
Words, art, and letters by Miriam Katin.
9 out of 10
Check out this 6-page preview of We Are On Our Own, courtesy of Drawn and Quarterly:
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