A masterwork... Clyde Fans is a brilliant trip.--Brian Seznick, The
Invention of Hugo Cabret
Legendary cartoonist Seth's magnum opus Clyde Fans appeared on twenty
best of the year lists, including The New York Times, The Guardian,
and Washington Post. The first graphic novel nominated for the Giller,
Canada's prestigious national fiction prize, it was also nominated for
the Eisner and Trillium Awards.
Clyde Fans peels back the optimism of mid-twentieth century
capitalism, showing the rituals, hopes, and delusions of a vanished
middle-class--garrulous men in wool suits extolling their wares to
taciturn shopkeepers. Like the myth of an ever-growing economy, the
Clyde Fans family business is a fraud. The patriarch has abandoned it to
mismatched sons, one who strives to keep the company afloat and the
other who retreats into his memories.
Abe and Simon Matchcard are brothers, struggling to save their archaic
family business selling oscillating fans in a world switching to air
conditioning. Simon flirts with becoming a salesman as a last-ditch
effort to leave the protective walls of the family home, but is
ultimately unable to escape Abe's critical voice in his head. As Clyde
Fans Co. crumbles, so does the relationship between the two men, who
choose very different life paths but both end up utterly unhappy.
Seth's intimate storytelling and gorgeous art allow cityscapes and
detailed period objects to tell their own stories as the brothers
struggle to find themselves suffocating in an airless home.
