RESTLESS, gorgeous, surreal story of coming out, and getting out of a war zone

RESTLESS
JOSEPH KAI
Street Noise Books
$19.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: What would life feel like without fear and oppression? Is it possible to find solace in the power of chosen family, underground art collectives, and ultimately revolution?

Set in Beirut, Lebanon, a city once known to be a vibrant cultural center of the region. It's 30 years after the end of the civil war, and a few months before the disastrous explosion of August 2020. Samar, a young queer comic book artist, wanders between anguished dreams, childhood memories, romantic experiences, and Beirut’s alternative communities. This abstractly autobiographical story tells of the author's anxiety over living in a complex city of changing colors and moods. Three powerful themes: art, sex, and political uprising, are interwoven in a compelling narrative and an otherworldly color palette.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Definitely for your older, out, college-age gay nephew or grandson. This is truly a heartwrenching story of being Other in a collapsing world of people stoked on rage and outrage. We begin with a dream sequence:

...that sets the tone of menace, in a place of not-quite reality, that I think every gay lad has experienced to some level. The story goes into the sadness and misery of feeling without a home, without anyone to call your own in a world that doesn't care at best, hates you for being you at worst.

The author/artist is a gay man from Beirut, so this is clearly autobiographical to some degree. It feels like he has lived these moments of passion, of fear, of loneliness. He is offering us his roadmap from a life at war, external and internal, to his present place of creative and engaged safety.

This being real life depicted in art, it isn't sugar-glazed:

...even when people are part of the life we make for ourselves, conflict continues, within us and among us. Every part of this message is worth delivering to your just-barely-fledged gay giftee as he starts reckoning with his complicated past, his unfolding present, his unknowable future.