Two ambitious brothers are driven to despair by the pressures of the kitchen in a vivid, shrewdly observed satire of fine dining
James Albon’s new graphic novel, The Delicacy, is not one to be read just before heading out to dinner. Set in the world of flashy restaurants, this parable of greed and ambition comes with a macabre ending that will undoubtedly put you right off your chanterelles on toast. But even so, it’s a treat from start to finish. Unlike so many recent comics – miserable, wilfully obscure books that I’ve often struggled to get through – this one is a page-turner, as addictive as the dishes dreamed up by its hero, a young man known to his family as Tulip.
When the story begins, Tulip and his brother, Rowan, are living on a Scottish island with their mother, Pegasus (formerly Sarah Green), a woman whose alternative lifestyle involves much balancing of her chakras and long lectures about the embrace of Gaia. Both men would like to escape her clutches and an opportunity to do so soon presents itself in the form of a lawyer, who arrives from the mainland bringing with him the news that they’ve inherited a house in rural Cambridgeshire from their aunt and uncle. Pegasus warns them about England – it’s all concrete and nuclear power – but they’re determined. Off they head in their van, stopping only to refuel at a motorway service station. “I once saw Nigel from Mum’s Wiccan circle eating a pizza on the ferry to Ullapool,” observes Tulip as they tuck into the processed foods they’ve been forbidden for so long.
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